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BRIDGEWATER 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 



1856. 













gg 



CELEBRATION 



®too-'§ttiitirctif(r 3limiiifrsar]r 

OF THE 

INCORPORATION OF BRIDGEWATER, 



MASSACHUSETTS, 



At West Bridgewater, June 3, 1856; 



INCLUDING THE 



ADDRESS BY HON. EMORY WASHBURN, OF WORCESTER: 

1 



POEM BY JAMES REED, A.B., OF BOSTON; 



AND THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE OCCASION. 



ffiSEitf) an 9pptnli(i. 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 

22, School Street. 

1856. 






r:< 



'^ 



A 



At a meeting of the Committee of AiTaiigements, held this day, the following 
vote was passed unanimously: — 

Voted, That the thanks of the Committee be presented to the Hon. Emoky 
Washburn for his learned, eloquent, and interesting Address, delivered on the 
Two-Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town of ancient Bridge- 
water, and that he be requested to furnish us a copy thereof for the press. 

A true copy. Attest, 

FRANKLIN AMES, Secretary. 
West Bripgewater, June 5, 1856. 



Worcester, June 20, 1856. 

Dear Sir, 

The kind terms in which the Committee were pleased to communicate 
a request for a copy of the Address, which I had the honor to deliver on the third 
instant, hardly leave me free to deliberate. If it can be a means of gratifying any 
one, I do not feel at liberty to refuse it, and therefore hasten to comply with the 
wish expressed in this vote of the fifth instant. 

I am. Sir, 
Very respectfully your obedient servant, 

EMORY WASHBURN. 

Fr.\nklin Ames, Esq., Secretary. 



CONTENTS. 



Intkoductoky 

Officers and Committees 

Order of Procession 

Hymn by AVilliam C. Bryant, Esq., of New York 
Address by Hon. Emory Washburn, of Worcester 
Poem by James Reed, A.B., of Boston 
Hymn by^ Rev. Daniel Huntington, of New London 
Welcome Address by Hon. John A. Shaw, of Bridgewatee 
Remarks by Hon. Ezekiel Whitman, of East Bridgewatee 
„ Hon. Lemuel Shaw, of Boston .... 
„ Hon. Emoey Washburn, of Worcester 
,, Rev. Ralph Sanger, of Dover .... 
,, Hon. George P. Sanger, of Boston . 
„ Hon. William Baylies, of West Beidgewatee 
„ Dr. Ebenezer Alden, of Randolph . 
„ Hon. Aaron Hobaet, of East Bridgewatee . 
„ Hon. Seth Speague, of Duxbury 
„ Hon. James M. Keith, of Roxbury . 



11 

ir 

18 

20 

83 

97 

99 

104 

110 

116 

118 

121 

124 

126 

130 

135 

137 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



Songs wkitten by Mr. D. \V. C. Packard, of North Bridgp:watek . 141 

Letter from his Excellency Henry J. Gardner 143 

Hon. Edward Everett, of Boston 144 

Hon. Charles E. Forbes, of Northampton . . . 144 

Hon. Israel Washburn, Jun., of Maine .... 145 

Hon. Elijah Hayward, of Ohio 146 

Hon. James Savage, of Boston 148 

Hon. C. C. Washburn, of Wisconsin .... 149 
Address to those who may celebrate the Third Centennial 

Anniversary 1,50 



APPENDIX 



159 



BRIDGEWATER 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



A MEETING of citizens of the four Bridgewaters * 
was held at the Town-hall in "West Bridgewater, 
Feb. 2, 1856, pursuant to public notice, to consider 
the expediency of celebrating the Second Centennial 
Anniversary of the Incorporation of the ancient town 
of Bridgewater, on the third day of June, 1856. 
Hon. John A. Shaw, of Bridgewater, was chosen 
Chairman ; and Franklin Ames, Esq., of North 
Bridgewater, Secretary. 

It was resolved unanimously to hold such a cele- 
bration at West Bridgewater, where the first white 
inhabitants of the old town settled ; and a Committee 
of forty-eight was chosen, consisting of twelve per- 
sons from each of the Bridgewaters, to make all the 
arrangements therefor, and carry the same into exe- 



Bridgewater was incorporated June 3, 1656. 
KoKTH Bridgewater, June 15, 1821. 
West Bridgewater, February 16, 1822. 
East Bridgewater, June 14, 1823. 
2 



10 BRIDGEWATER 

cution. Said Committee consisted of the following 
persons : — 

Jonathan Copeland, Albe Howard, Pardon Cope- 
land, Nahum Leonard, Nahum Snell, Thomas Ames, 
James Alger, Henry H. Whitman, Joseph Kingman, 
Austin Packard, Calvin Williams, and Dwelley Fobes, 
of West Bridgewaten 

John A. Shaw, Artemas Hale, Philander Leach, 
Horace Ames, John Edson, Williams Latham, Tho- 
mas Cushman, David Perkins, Spencer Leonard, jun., 
Abram Washburn, Mitchell Hooper, and Calvin B. 
Pratt, of Bridgewater. 

Welcome Young, William Allen, Azor Harris, 
James H. Mitchell, Samuel B. Allen, Benjamin W. 
Harris, Asa Mitchell, Aaron Hobart, jun., James 
Bates, Nathan Whitman, Seth Bryant, and Hector 
O. A. Orr, of East Bridgewater. 

Eliab Whitman, Edward Southworth, jun., Perez 
Marshall, Franklin Ames, Ellis Packard, Martin L. 
Keith, George W. Bryant, Henry W. Robinson, 
Henry Howard, Isaac Kingman, Samuel Dunbar, and 
Jonas E.. Perkins, of North Bridgewater. 

It was decided by the Committee of Arrangements 
to have an address, a poem, and a dinner ; and Austin 
Packard, Artemas Hale, William Allen, and Edward 
Southworth, jun., were chosen a Committee to pro- 
cure suitable persons to deliver the address and poem, 
and to employ the services of such clergymen as they 
might think proper. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 



U 



Joseph Kingman, Calvin Williams, Henry H. 
Whitman, Mitchell Hooper, Williams Latham, 
Calvin B. Pratt, Benjamin W. Harris, James Bates, 
James H. Mitchell, Ellis Packard, Martin L. Keith, 
and George W. Bryant, were chosen a Committee to 
fix upon a definite plan of procedure, and report 
at the adjournment of the meeting. 

In pursuance of the report of the last-named Com- 
mittee, the following officers were chosen : — 

President of the Day. 
JOHN A. SHAW. 



Vice-Fres idents. 



Nahum Leonard. 
Jonathan Copeland. 
Benjamin B. Howard. 
William Baylies. 
Pardon Keith. 
Artemas Hale. 
Samuel Leonard. 
Philip E. Hill. 
Holmes Sprague. 
Solomon Alden. 



Ezekiel Whitman. 
Aaron Hobart. 
Welcome Young. 
Gushing Mitchell. 
AzoR Harris. 
Eliab Whit>ian. 
Samuel Dunbar, 

JosIAH W. KlNGALWf. 

Edward Southworth. 
Franklin Ames. 



Treasurer. 
Austin Packard. 

Chief Marshal. 
Aaron B. Drake. 

Assistant Marshals. 

Thomas Ames. I James Bates. 

George L. Andrews. Francis M. French. 



Toast-Master. 
Benjamin W. Harris. 



12 



BRIDGEWATER 



Assistant Toast-Masters. 



Joseph Kingman. 



George W. Bryant. 



Dated Perkins. 



Committee of Finance. 



dwelley fobes. 
Robert Perkins. 



Nathan "Whitman. 
George W. Bryant. 



Committee on Sentiments, Invitations, and Beception of Guests. 



Austin Packard. 
Joseph Kingman. 
John A, Shaw. 
Artemas Hale. 



"William Allen. 
Asa Mitchell. 
Edward Southworth, jun. 
Jonas R. Perkins. 



Naitom Snell. 
Solomon ICeith. 



Committee on Music. 



Ezra Kingman. 
Ellis Packard. 



Executive Committee. 



Thomas Ames, 
Henry H. "Whitman. 
C.AL^^N Williams. 
George AVilbar. 
Amasa Howard. 



Williams Latham. 
Gallon B. Pratt. 
Jajies H. Mitchell. 
Seth Bryant. 
Ellis Packard. 



Martin L. Keith. 



Committee to print the Address and Poem, with a Report of the 
Celebration. 



Austin Packard. 
Artejus Hale. 



WiLLUM Allen. 
Franklin Ajmes. 



Committee to prepare an Address to those tcho may celebrate the Third 
Centennial Anniversary. 



Joseph Kingman. 

DWELLEY FoBES. 

John A. Sh\w. 
Thomas Cushman. 



AVillia:w Allen. 
Asa Mitchell. 
Edward Southworth, jiin. 
Paitl Couch. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 13 

The Chief Marshal was authorized to appoint his 
aids, and the Assistant Marshals their aids. 

The Executive Committee was authorized to act 
upon and decide all matters not specially assigned to 
any other Committee. 

The several towns appropriated their proportion of 
one thousand dollars towards defraying the expenses 
of the celebration. 

And the Committee on Printing was directed to 
enclose the various documents, relating to the Cele- 
bration, in a box, and deposit the same in the town- 
safe at Bridgewater, for the use of those who may 
celebrate the Third Centennial Anniversary. 

The ringing of the bells on all the churches in the 
four towns, and the discharge of cannon, announced 
the dawn of the Centennial Day. The weather was 
as pleasant as could be desired, and a large number 
of people assembled to join in the festivities of the 
occasion. 

Several places of historical note were appropriately 
designated, among which were the following : — 

"CENTRE TREE." 

A stone monument now occupies the place where 
the Centre Tree formerly stood. It was long known 
as the centre of Bridgewater, and was established, 
pursuant to an order of the Court at Plymouth, soon 



14 BRIDGEWATER 

after the incorporation of the town. It is on the 
southerly side of the road between the raih'oad and 
the house of Thomas Hayward, who, with his ances- 
tors, has owned and occupied the place about one 
hundred and fifty years. 

"FLAT ROCK." 

Rev. James Keith, the first minister of Bridgewater, 
is said to have preached his first sermon on this rock 
in 1664. An anecdote is related of him, the narration 
of which may help explain the meaning of a placard 
on the route of the procession. It appears that Mini- 
ster Keith had a daughter, Mary, who gave her heart 
to Ephraim, son of John Howard, the first settler of 
that name. Mary's father did not approve of the 
match ; notwithstanding which, the lovers were united. 
The displeased clergyman preached a sermon, appro- 
priate to the occasion and to his feelings, from the 
following text : " Ephraim is joined to idols : let him 
alone." (Hos. iv. 17.) As time rolled on. Parson 
Keith became reconciled to his son-in-law, and learned 
to love and respect him. The parson then preached 
another sermon, and took for his text, " Is Ephraim 
my dear son ? is he a pleasant child 'i For, since 
I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him 
still ; therefore my bowels are troubled for him : I 
will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." 
(Jer. xxxi. 20.) 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 15 



"INDIANS HERE IMPOUNDED." 



According to Mitchell's " History of Bridge water," 
a number of Indian prisoners were conveyed into the 
Town Pound on the night of Aug. 3, 1676, and an 
Indian guard set over them. " They were treated 
with victuals and drink, and had a merry night ; and 
the prisoners laughed as loud as the soldiers, not hav- 
ing been so well treated before for a long time." 



The Green, selected as the place of general rendez- 
vous, was admirably adapted to the purpose. It can 
be entered by five different roads ; allowing a separate 
entrance for the procession from each of the four 
Bridgewaters, besides a common passage out when 
united in one column. Over each street through 
which the processions entered, was suspended one of 
the following inscriptions : — 

"WEST PRECINCT."* 
"SOUTH PRECINCT, 1716." 
"EAST PRECINCT, 1723." 
"NORTH PRECINCT, 1738." 

Over the street through which the general proces- 
sion passed from the Green, was erected a triumphal 
arch, surmounted by the American eagle and flags, 
with the inscription, — 

" BRIDGEWATER, JUNE 3, 1656." 

* The West Precinct, or Parish, was never incorporated by any act of the 
legislature, but succeeded the old town in the transaction of parochial affairs. — 
The figures show when the other parishes were incorporated. 



16 BRIDGEWATER 

In the centre of the Green, a flag-staff was erected, 
and a structure for the exhibition of antiquities. 
This is the place where stood the old meeting-house 
built in 1731, and which, for many years, served the 
double purpose of a church and town-house. 

The houses of Jarvis D. Burrell, Daniel Chaplin, 
Isaac Howard, Jonas Leonard, and the store of Baker 
and Williams, fronting the Green, and the houses of 
Francis Perkins, Seneca Folsom, Thomas Ames, Ben- 
jamin Howard, Daniel H. Baker, and others, were 
elegantly and tastefully decorated, under the direction 
of Col. William Beals, of Boston. 

The inhabitants of each town assembled at an early 
hour, at a short distance from the Green, and formed 
a procession in such order as their respective Marshals 
directed. 

The general procession, which was one of the great 
features of the day, was formed on the Green, at ten 
o'clock in the morning, and marched under the arch, 
by the mills, the houses of Benjamin Howard, Daniel 
H. Baker, and the meeting-house, under the direction 
of the Chief Marshal, escorted by the North Bridge- 
water Light Dragoons, Capt. H. A. Raymond, and 
Gilmore's Salem Brass Band, occupying about forty 
minutes in passing a given point, in the following 
order : * — 



* The procession was amused in passing by W. C. Bailey, who was beating 
and swuigling flax. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 17 

Aid. Chief Marshal. Aid. 

President and Orator of the Day. 

Poet and Chaplains. 

Invited Guests. 

Clergymen of the Four Bridgewaters. 

Committee of Arrangements. 

Vice-Presidents of the Day. 



Aid. Assistant Marshal. Aid. 

The West-Bridgewater Procession, 

Preceded by Flagg's Comet Band, 

Consisted of a large number of Citizens, -with Banners, and the Pupils of the 
Public Schools, with their Teachers. 



Aid. Assistant Marshal. Aid. 

The Bridgewater Procession, 

Preceded by the Boston Brass Band, 

Had two beautifully painted Banners ; one representing Bridgewater in 1656, the 
other in 1856. Accompanying the same procession was a large Can-iage, con- 
taining a Kepresentation of a School in Old Times, with the Teacher and her 
Pupils in the dress of those days. A gentleman rode on horseback, with a lady 
sitting on a pillion behind him. Then came a Carriage laden with Old and 
Modern Implements of Agriculture, followed by Old Chaises and other vehi- 
cles, filled with people dressed in the costume of former years. 



Aid. Assistant Marshal. Aid. 

The East-Bridgewater Procession, 

Preceded by the Boston Brigade Band, 

Comprised a Cavalcade of Citizens; a Corps of the Veterans of 1812, commanded 
by Capt. Ely Blanchard; a Eepresentation of the Purchase of Bridgewater, 
in 1649, by Miles Standish, Samuel Nash, and Constant Southworth, — in behalf 
of the townsmen of Duxbury, and in the garb of our Puritan ancestors, — of 
Massasoit (or " Ousamequin," as he was then called), in the perfect costume 
of his ti-ibe, from the feathery ornaments of the head to the decorated mocca- 
sons of the feet, with one hand resting upon a gun, and holding in the other the 
deed or written instrument of bargain and sale. The Scholars of the District 
Schools rode in carriages, covered with gi-een boughs, bearing a Banner, in- 
scribed with, — "We revere our Forefathers." Another Banner bore the date 
of "1723," — the time when the East Parish was incorporated. 

3 



18 BRIDGEWATER 

Aid. Assistant Marshal. Aid. 

The North-Beidgewater Procession, 

Preceded by the Brass Band of that Town, 

Comprised a Corps of Soldiers dressed in the military costume of the Conti- 
nentals, commanded bj' Capt. John Battles; the Campello Rangers, Capt. 
ZiBA Keith ; the Protector Engine Company, Capt. C. L. Hauthaway, with 
their engine beautifully decorated, and drawn by four horses ; after which 
came the Enterprise Engine Company in uniform, and a large number of 
Citizens. 



At twelve o'clock, the general procession entered 
the Pavilion, erected for the purpose by E,. M. Yale, 
of Boston, in a field on the easterly side of the 
main street, between the houses of Azel Howard and 
William Copeland. 

The exercises commenced by an Invocation by 
Rev. Jonas Perkins, of Braintree. 

The following Hymn, written by William C. 
Bryant, Esq., of New York, was sung by the 
assembled multitude to the tune of "Auld Lang 
Syne:"— ^ 

Two hundred times has June renewed 

Her roses, since the day 
When here, amid the lonely wood, 

Our fathers met to pray. 

Beside this gentle stream, that strayed 

Through pathless deserts then, 
The calm, heroic women prayed, 

And grave, undaunted men. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 19 

Hymns on the ancient silence broke 

From hearts that faltered not, 
And undissembling lips that spoke 

The free and guileless thought. 

They prayed, and thanked the Mighty One 

Who made their hearts so strong, 
And led them towards the setting sun, 

Beyond the reach of wrong. 

For them he made that desert-place 

A pleasant heritage, — 1( 

The cradle of a free-born race 

From peaceful age to age. 

The plant they set — a little vine — 

Hath stretched its boughs afar 
To distant hills and streams that shine 

Beneath the evening star. 

Ours are their fields, — these fields that smile 

With summer's early flowers : 
Oh, let their feai-less scorn of guile, 

And love of truth, be ours ! 



Prayer was offered by Rev. Paul Couch, of North 
Bridgewater. 



Hon. Emory Washburn, of Worcester, delivered 
the following Address : — 



20 BRIDGE WATER 



ADDRESS 



We have come up hither, to-day, to lay the offer- 
ings of cherished memories and honest pride upon 
altars which our fathers reared here in years that are 
past. 

Two centuries have consecrated the spot by its 
history and associations ; and we dedicate the day 
to the reminiscences which this anniversary is calcu- 
lated to awaken. 

Though there be little in the annals of such a com- 
munity that might be deemed worthy of a place in a 
nation's history, it is because the same courage and 
fortitude, the same love of country, and the same 
devotion to truth and humanity, which have immor- 
talized heroes and martyrs and patriots on a broader 
stage of action, have here been circumscribed within 
a narrower sphere. 

Though the history of this little community may 
properly form the theme of our reflections on an anni- 
versary like this, we can neither contemplate the 
characters of its founders, nor the events that led to 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 21 

the planting of this offshoot from the original colony, 
without recalling the men and the circumstances by 
which that colony itself was planted. 

It cannot, however, be necessary, before this 
audience, to tell who and what were the Pilgrims who 
founded the Plymouth colony. 

You know them; the world knows them; and 
their names will not perish till this wide continent 
itself shall have passed away. And standing, as we 
do, upon a spot which was witness to some of their 
struggles, and whose occupancy was among the early 
fruits of their triumph over the difficulties that 
surrounded them, the memory goes back instinctively 
to that train of events which was crowned by the 
planting of a colony of free and enlightened English- 
men on the shores of New England. 

Bear with me, therefore, while I attempt to recall 
some of the circumstances which were connected with 
that system of training, and that sequence of events, 
which, in the order of Providence, made the founders 
of Plymouth the instruments of a social and political 
revolution more important in its consequences than 
any other that the world ever witnessed. 

The world had, for centuries, exhibited the social 
antagonism of weakness and endurance on the part of 
the masses, and of arrogance and oppression on the 
part of their rulers, relieved, occasionally only, by 
the rise of some little republic, or the violent over- 
throw of some ancient dynasty. 



22 BRIDGEWATER 

But neither in the political condition of the nations 
of the Old World, nor the extent of knowledge diffused 
among the masses, was there any well-grounded hope 
of any thing like a radical reform. Old notions, old 
habits, old prejudices, and old institutions, had ob- 
tained such possession of the popular mind in the Old 
World, that, to human calculation, it seemed impos- 
sible to lift the weight that was pressing it down. 

If the light at any time dawned on any favored 
spot, every ray was soon absorbed and extinguished 
by the thick and impenetrable darkness by which 
it was surrounded; and the world had for a long 
time waited for some great movement to arouse the 
masses to something like a common purpose, when 
the Reformation broke the spell which bigotry and 
superstition had thrown over the human mind. 

But there was danger that even this great move- 
ment would exhaust itself and subside. The excite- 
ment arising from the novelty of its views had passed 
away; the force of old habits and associations was 
already beginning to be manifested in a returning 
attachment to forms, and a growing reverence for the 
pomp and ceremony of a ritual that had so long daz- 
zled the senses of a superstitious multitude. 

The leading spirits in that revolution had, one after 
the other, gone to their reward. Wickliff and Huss 
and Luther and Zwingli and Knox and Calvin had 
each done a noble work towards the religious emanci- 
pation of Christendom ; but the spirit of trade and 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 23 

commerce, the love of ease and the possession of 
power, had begun to distract the counsels and subdue 
the zeal of those to whom had been intrusted the 
completion of the work. Even in England, the strong- 
hold of the Reformation, the punctilios of ceremony, 
the vestments of the clergy, and the ritual of the 
church, had usurped that place in the public mind 
which the true spirit of Protestantism had assigned 
only to the truths and mysteries of our holy religion. 

Between the intolerance of the Roman pontiff and 
the scarcely less intolerant Catholicism of the head 
of the Protestant English church, Protestantism 
was in danger of being crushed for ever. Power was 
against it ; the passions of the human heart were 
against it ; worldly ambition was against it ; and the 
traditions of the past, as well as the love of present 
ease and comfort, were against it ; and in few spots 
in the Old World was there any thing like a free play 
of the human reason to be found. 

As we now look at the subject, from this point of 
view, one place of refuge only presents itself, where 
the faith of the reformers may be safe ; and that is the 
untrodden wilderness of the New World. There, 
away from the seductions of worldly power and 
worldly honors, beyond the empire of fashion and of 
rituals, with a field open and free for culture. Truth 
may strike its roots deep into a friendly soil, and 
spring up in vigor and beauty to bear the fruit of 
free institutions. 



24 BRIDGEWATER 

But place was not the only circumstance concerned 
in the preservation and development of great princi- 
ples like those of the Reformation. Nor was it mere 
freedom in matters of conscience to which that move- 
ment tended. Though it came in the form of inde- 
pendence in religious opinions, its scope embraced 
civil as well as religious liberty, and depended for its 
ultimate success upon the character of its actors, and 
the opportunity they enjoyed for the exercise of the 
powers they possessed. 

And, as we contemplate this subject more in detail, 
we perceive, that, in order to plant a colony which 
should stand by its own strength, and grow by its 
own inherent energy, it must be made of sterner stuff, 
and be actuated by higher motives, than any that had 
hitherto been attempted in the northern parts of 
America. 

Enterprise after enterprise had failed, although 
fostered and encouraged by royal favor or the patron- 
age of the great. Cartier and Roberval had aban- 
doned their efforts to colonize Canada, while sustained 
by the prestige and the power of the monarch of 
France. The settlers at Sagadahoc, though patronized 
and encouraged by Popham, the Lord Chief Justice of 
England, after the experience of a single winter, had 
gone back to England, defeated and disheartened. 
Gosnold, under the favor of the Earl of Southampton, 
had begun an experiment, which, after a few months, 
he had ingloriously given up, even before he had 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. - 25 

encountered the rigors of the cKmate or the discom- 
forts of the emigrant. 

Smith had explored, and given the attractive name 
of " New England " to, this portion of the continent ; 
but the men who should plant it, who should open 
its rugged soil to the sun, and fit it for the habitations 
of civilized life, were yet to be found. If they were 
not yet to be created, they had not yet been educated 
or trained for such a work as this. There were for 
the work certain qualifications which were essential 
to success ; and even these,- without a proper course 
of training, would be found inadequate for its accom- 
plishment. 

Nor are we at a loss to judge from what nation, 
and from what race, the founders of such a colony 
must come. 

For centuries, the Briton, the Roman, the Saxon, 
and the Norman, had been mingling and blending 
into what we call the Anglo-Saxon race, the traits of 
whose character are still being manifested in the 
onward march towards universal empire. If we ana- 
lyze that character, it will be found to embrace the 
very elements the most needed in a work like that 
which we now know the founders of Plymouth colony 
had before them. 

Promptness in devising plans, combined with a 
dogged perseverance in their execution ; calmness in 
judgment, kept in vigorous action by the stimulus of 
self-love, and ambition for power, — were some of the 



26 BRIDGEWATER 

characteristics of that race, whose political wisdom, 
inexhaustible resources, and warlike prowess, have 
filled so important a page in the history of na- 
tions. 

But something more even than this was wanted. 
These national traits of character required to be 
warmed into enthusiasm. It wanted that that spark 
of liberty, which, though but a spark, had been kept 
alive from the time of the old Saxon heptarchy, 
should be fanned into a flame, till every part of the 
body politic should be warmed and animated with a 
common and generous glow of sympathy. 

The Reformation had done much to awaken this 
train of thought and feeling. But it remained for 
the Puritans of England to accomplish what the 
Reformation had begun. 

To their eye, earthly honors were as nothing to the 
crown of glory that awaited them beyond the grave ; 
and the world's treasures were poor in the light of 
that inheritance which awaited the saints who should 
persevere to the end. They read, in their Bibles, of 
the common origin and common destiny of their race ; 
and they stood up erect before thrones and rulers, 
spurning alike the civil despot, and the tyranny of 
the hierarch that denied to them the pure and simple 
worship which their hearts craved and their con- 
sciences dictated. 

Nor was this all that was needed to establish a 
community, without a charter to unite or royal bounty 



CENTENNIAL CELEBKATION. 27 

to foster it, — a colony planted in the desert, and 
left to pitiless storms and scorching suns, to thrive, 
if at all, by its own vital, seminal principle. 

For such a community, there must be a singleness 
of purpose, a homogeneity of character and views and 
feelings, amongst its members, rarely, if ever, before 
attained by any considerable body of men. Without 
these, their union would be like the sands upon which 
it was to be planted, — scattered by the first gust of 
dissension, and swept away by the first storm that 
fell upon it. 

The process by which this state of feeling was to 
be attained was, like all the great measures of Provi- 
dence, simple, and, in the end, clear and intelli- 
gible. 

With England as it then was, the idea of bringing 
the minds of men in difierent parts of the kingdom 
into sufi[icient harmony to carry forward such an 
enterprise would have been little better than an idle 
dream. The historians of England have told us of 
the condition of that country at that time. They had 
no means of creating, or keeping alive, a public sen- 
timent. Books were scarce and costly, and read by 
comparatively few. Newspapers they had none ; and 
even the intercourse by post was only along a few 
principal lines of communication, in its slow progress, 
and at infrequent periods. And York was scarcely 
nearer to London than we are ; and Devonshire and 
Lincoln were, as communities, as much strangers to 



28 BRIDGEWATEK 

each other as Edinburgh is now to Paris or Os- 
tend. 

Where, then, are we to look for such a community 
as should furnish the school in which to train the 
men and women who were to plant New Eng- 
land] 

Bear in mind, that to do this required them to go 
forth into the wilderness, to give up the comforts of 
civilized life, and that they are there to rear a Chris- 
tian commonwealth, without any guide or chart to 
direct them save the dictates of conscience and an 
enlightened common sense. And we may readily 
perceive that the place for training such men is not 
amongst the luxuries of the city, the busy haunts of 
trade or commerce ; but away from these, among the 
rural homes of England, and removed, as far as 
might be, from the parasites of power. 

And as we recall the history of the men, who, in 
fact, founded Plymouth, we find that it was in 
precisely such a region as this that God in his pro- 
vidence gathered that little church, under Robinson 
and Brewster, which was to form the nucleus of a 
mighty nation of freemen. 

Upon the confines of Nottingham, York, and Lin- 
coln, amidst a population purely agricultural, within 
the Hundred of Basset-Lawe, lay the little village of 
Scrooby. So obscure has it been, and so little known 
to history, that its very name, till recently, had well- 
nigh been forgotten. Yet there, within that seques- 



CENTENNIAL CELEBKATION. 29 

tered village, did that little band of Separatists come 
together to worship God, and keep alive each other's 
faith and courage. Its name can scarcely be deci- 
phered on the map of England. The manor-house in 
which Brewster dwelt, and Avithin which they met, 
has long since disappeared. The traveller, for two 
hundred years, has passed by the spot, unconscious 
that it possessed any thing of historical interest. 
Nor was it till a few years since, that the devoted zeal 
of an English antiquary for the memory of the Pil- 
grims traced up to this, its fountainhead, the little 
wellspring of the Plymouth colony, 

\But as we contemplate the spot, the men, the 
motive, and the result, we find that it needs no effort 
of the imagination, no conception of classic fable, to 
give dignity or interest to its story. It was there that 
the process of union and assimilation was begun ; it 
was there that the men who were to form one homo- 
geneous body, in order to achieve success, were trained 
in the school of adversity. The tie that bound them 
was the sympathy of a common nature, animated by 
a common hope, involved in a common destiny, and 
kept in harmonious action by the pressure of a com- 
mon danger. 

But though the men had been found; though, 
amidst the dangers by which they were surrounded, a 
place of comparative safety had been provided for 
meeting and for counsel, — the time for action had 
not yet arrived. Some more searching test of courage 



30 BRIDGEWATEK 

and fidelity was yet to be applied. And the next 
step in the sequence of events was their act of self- 
banishment They were at last forced to fly from 
the fire of persecution which was besetting them on 
every side, and, in sorrow and desolation, sought a 
refuge, from the ruthless ferocity of their own coun- 
trymen, upon the friendly shores of Protestant, pros- 
perous Holland. 

This, it will be remembered, was in the year 
1608. 

Were we to stop here, and, ignorant of the fate of 
these fugitives from their homes, were we now to 
open the page of history for the first time, should we 
not expect to read how that little band, one after the 
other, were swallowed up in the populous sea into 
which they had thrown themselves 1 Trade, com- 
merce, prosperous industry, worldly ease, and an 
untrammelled exercise of their own forms of wor- 
ship, were busy in quenching that fire of enthusiasm 
which nerved them to meet a hostile persecution. 

Their children must grow up among strangers, and 
gradually lose their mother tongue, till, by every law 
of human calculation, long before even the first cen- 
tury had closed over that community of English 
Protestants and Separatists, they had been merged 
into respectable, prosperous, nationalized men of 
Holland. 

But, if we open that volume of history at the end 
of eleven years, we find that they have indeed passed 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 31 

through this ordeal, — ten times more trying than 
the fines and stripes and prisons from which they had 
escaped in England; and they have come out un- 
scathed. They have been tried by the temptations and 
fascinations of the world ; but they are the same little 
church, not of the lonely rural hamlet of Scrooby, but 
the worldly, populous city of Leyden. And Robin- 
son is there; and Winslow has joined them; and 
Bradford is working at his trade there ; and Brewster 
is there to keep alive the spirit which had animated 
them when his roof was their only shelter. But they 
saw the dangers that surrounded them as we now see 
them^ — the dangers of that very safety and prosperity 
which they had sought by flight; and they were 
ready to go forth again, into the only refuge which 
was left for them, — the w^ilderness of America. 

There they may build their own altars, and worship 
in their own language ; there may they rear their 
children, away from the world's delusive temptations, 
and hope, that, when they shall be gathered to their 
fathers, the faith for which they have suffered will still 
be kept pure in the sanctuary of a free church. 

But, though thus trained by this long discipline, 
there was yet one more step in the process of prepa- 
ration to be taken, before their final exodus. In the 
language of a writer of that day, " the wheat had yet 
to be winnowed," that none but the sound and ripe 
and fitting grain should be employed to plant the vir- 
gin soil of New England. 



32 BRIDGEWATER 

Let US bear in mind, that, though unconsciously to 
themselves, those who were to engage in that enter- 
prise were to constitute a Body Politic, as well as a 
Christian church, in the management of whose affairs 
qualities of a high and varied character were to be 
required. Mere piety, and a spirit of devotion, were 
not enough. They were to encounter danger; and 
they needed the heroism as well as the trained valor 
of the soldier. They were to frame and administer a 
form of government, till then new and untried ; and 
they must have political sagacity, legislative wisdom, 
and executive talent. The forest was to be subdued, 
a hardy soil to be brought into cultivation, and the 
bays and shallows of the ocean to be sounded by 
the lines of the fisherman ; and they must have 
ruffged hands for toil, as well as wise heads for coun- 
sel. And, above all, they needed that which gave 
to their English homes their chief charm, to sustain 
their courage, and to cheer them in their labors, — 
the untiring devotion, the kind assiduities, and the 
hopeful fortitude of woman ; and, without these, they 
would have failed, as other colonies had done before 
them. 

I pass over the sad parting at Delft Haven. I 
stop not to speak of the " Speedwell," abandoned, at 
last, as hopelessly unseaworthy. I follow the track of 
the lonely " Mayflower," freighted, as she is, with the 
destinies of this Western World. I look in upon her 
crowded cabin, as she goes pitching and laboring on 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 33 

in her solitary way across the stormy ocean ; and, at 
length, I listen to the voice of thanksgiving that goes 
up from the patient, tempest-tost, betrayed, yet hope- 
ful group that crowd her deck, as they look out for 
the first time upon the sands of Cape Cod, on the 
11th of November, 1620. And, regarding them in 
the unerring light of history, let me ask, if, among 
that hundred souls, there be not the very elements 
that are requisite to accomplish the work they have 
undertaken'? Which of these are wanting] 

There is the pious Brewster, still true and faithful 
to his little flock ; there is the brave old Carver, and 
there the wise and prudent Bradford, the accomplished 
and courteous Winslow, and the gallant, chivalrous 
Standish. And there, too, is the sobered matron, 
with a mother's cares ; the young and hopeful wife, 
and the blushing maiden. And there are White and 
Allerton and Alden and Warren, and those other 
names that have become household words in these 
homes of the Pilgrims. They are all there ; and, as 
you look over that roll, tell me, is not the work in 
which Providence has been engaged, through the 
changes and revolutions of more than a century, about 
to be consummated 1 The tried men have been found 
at last ; the ties that bound them to Old England 
have been severed ; and the ship that bore them from 
her shores has let go her anchor upon the soil of 
New England. 

The value of that disciplinary training through 



34 BRIDGEWATER 

which they had passed was tested before they had 
even set foot upon that soil. They found themselves 
beyond the limits of their charter, and, without a 
government, thrown homeless on a wintry coast, 
beyond the reach or the protection of any law. 

But not a murmur is heard, not a thought of 
license or insubordination is cherished. Unknown to 
them. Providence had designed, through them, 
to demonstrate the capacity of man for self-govern- 
ment ; and, in the very cabin of the " Mayflower," 
that solemn, memorable compact was entered into, 
which stands out upon the page of history as the first 
free civil compact of government that the world had 
ever witnessed. 

Brief, however, as is that paper, and simple and 
earnest as is its language, how noble was its concep- 
tion ! — the germ of a free, democratic State, the first 
development of that grand idea of political equality 
which has spread out over this vast continent its 
busy, prosperous millions of freemen, and has been 
moving the nations of Europe as with an earthquake's 
power. 

But, in attempting to do justice to history, let me 
not do injustice to the true grandeur of the Pilgrim 
character. No one pretends they came here to pro- 
claim an abstract theory of government, or to record 
their names upon a roll of parchment, in the fanciful 
hope of their being read by coming generations. 
They came here for other and different purposes ; 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 35 

and the adoption of the framework of civil govern- 
ment in the harbor of Cape Cod was but one of the 
scries of acts and events which illustrate what I have 
so often repeated, — the perfection of that discipline 
to which they had been subjected. No emergency 
found them unprepared ; no vicissitude of fortune dis- 
comforted or disturbed them. It was the promptitude 
of the accomplished general, never surprised, never 
off his guard, and coolly meeting, amidst the very din 
of battle, the shifting and changing fortunes of the 
day. It was the practised eye and quick intelligence 
of the experienced helmsman in the storm, the calm 
self-possession and keen sagacity of the wise states- 
man when the affairs of state press most heavily upon 
him. 

But, in the case of the Pilgrims, instead of sub- 
mitting, as a body, to the guidance and control of 
some master-spirit, each felt a share of a common 
responsibility, and submitted his own will to that 
of the whole body ; so that, whatever measures they 
adopted, they were the result of the combined judg- 
ment and good sense of the whole number. And, in 
this way, they not only planted a free church in a free 
state, but developed the germ of that New-England 
— may I not say Yankee ? — character, which, in its 
vitalizing influence, was felt in every colony and town 
and household that grew up on its rugged soil, — 
that character, which, in the long struggle with the 
mother country in after-years, so often supplied the 



36 BRIDGEWATER 

place of an organized government ; providing in their 
destitution the sinews of war, and crowning the work 
at last with a free constitution. 

But I am anticipating. 

The adoption of this simple form of government 
was completed by the election of Carver as their 
governor ; and, without misgiving or delay, they set 
about selecting a place for the seat of their little com- 
monwealth. And here, again, the hand of Providence 
was manifest, in having thrown them upon a part of 
the coast which a pestilence had nearly depopulated, 
leaving it literally vacant for the occupation of the 
new-comers. 

After one month's exploration, urged on by the rapid 
approach of winter, — for snow had already begun to 
fall, — they discovered a spot which the historian 
informs us " they supposed fit for situation : at least, 
it was the best they could find ; and the season and 
their present necessity made them glad to accept it." 
That spot has become the shrine to which the modern 
pilgrim turns his footstep ; and " Forefathers' Day " 
is the holiest in New England's calendar. 

Will it be said that I have dw^lt too long upon 
the character of the men and women who braved the 
horrors of that first dreadful winter, and literally 
made that spot holy ground by the prayers with which 
it was consecrated, and the memory of the dead whose 
ashes were mingled with its till then unbroken soil ? 
There is nothing alien or far-fetched in the sketch, if 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 37 

we apply it to the character of the founders of Bridge- 
water. If none of the " first-comers " actually removed 
to this spot, three of them were among the original 
men of Duxbury to whom the township was granted. 
Three of the thirty-five who came in the " Fortune," 
the first vessel that arrived after the departure of the 
" Mayflower," are found among these proprietors ; and 
one who came in the third vessel, the "Anne," in 1623. 
So that the founders of Bridgewater were so far asso- 
ciated and identified with the " old-comers," or " fore- 
fathers " of the colony, that, in speaking of the charac- 
teristics of the one, we, in effect, are but doing justice 
to the other. Many of them, moreover, are supposed to 
have come over from Leyden within the first ten years 
of the colony ; and when, at last, they settled this fron- 
tier plantation, they did little more than transfer to a 
new locality the wisdom they had been taught in the 
rugged experience through which they had passed, 
the love of civil and spiritual liberty which had exiled 
them from their English homes, and the laws and 
infant institutions which had grown out of their con- 
dition as colonists. 

We, therefore, cannot do justice to them or the 
occasion, without referring to some of the measures 
of government and police which the founders of 
the colony adopted for the promotion of its inte- 
rests. There is a spirit, pervading them all, which 
seems never to have been lost sight of; and that is 
the personal security, the equal protection, and the 



38 BRIDGEWATER 

practical independence, of those who were admitted to 
the rights of freemen. Their rulers were elected by 
a popular vote. The whole body of freemen, for 
eighteen years, united in making their own laws, and, 
at last, only substituted delegates elected for the pur- 
pose because they had become too numerous to act 
collectively. 

The laws they enacted, though we may smile at 
some of them, cannot now be read without pride and 
admiration. The' true character of their early legis- 
lation and institutions will be better appreciated 
when the work of publication shall be accomplished 
in which such able hands are now employed, which is 
to place within the reach of every one a complete 
record of the Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies. 
But it would more than serve my purpose, if I could 
take that volume, known as the " Plymouth Laws," 
which was published by our Legislature in 1836, and 
present them, one by one, to your attention. I would 
ask you to remark their fitness for the condition 
under which the colonists found themselves, to what 
extent they borrowed some of the best provisions of 
law under which they had been bred, and with what 
wisdom and foresight they laid deep the foundations 
of a free State. It should be remembered, that the 
first satisfactory charter 'they had been able to obtain 
was in 1629. At that time, in the language of that 
charter, " by the special providence of God, and their 
extraordinary care and industry, they had increased 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 39 

their plantation to near three hundred people ; and 
were, on occasions, able to relieve any planters, or 
others of his majesty's subjects, who might fall upon 
that coast." 

During this period, the compact of the " May- 
flower " had been the basis of their popular form of 
government ; but they never seem to have forgot that 
which was due to the character and self-respect of 
freemen. The settlement of Plymouth, in the cant 
phrase of the present day, was an exercise of " squat- 
ter sovereignty " which needs no popular harangue or 
partisan press to dignify or defend. It was to create 
a new home for freedom ; it was to plant on that 
soil institutions whose growth should root out and 
overtop every baleful parasite like Slavery, that 
weakens and wastes the stock upon which it fastens 
and feeds, 

I open, then, that volume ; and the first legislative 
act on which the eye rests is " that criminal facts, and 
all matters of trespasses and debts between man 
and man, shall be tried by twelve honest men, impa- 
nelled by authority, in form of a jury, upon their 
oaths." When we remember with what tenacity the 
people of England had always clung to this relic of 
Saxon liberty, through all the vicissitudes of tyranny 
and oppression through which they had passed, trial 
by jury cannot, indeed, be claimed as a new discovery 
in political science. But that it should be so early 
declared, and be made, as it were, one of the very 



40 BRIDGEWATER 

fouiidation-stones of their political fabric, serves to 
show, that, next to their duty to God, the duty of 
guarding the rights of their fellow-men lay nearest 
their hearts. 

Of some of their laws, indeed, the progress of the 
age has superseded the necessity. And when we 
recall the scramble there is for office, high or low, 
and how greatly the number of candidates exceed the 
places that are to be filled, w^e may be pardoned a 
smile when we read, " 7/*, noiv or hereafter, any are 
elected to the office of governor, and will not stand to the 
election, nor hold nor execute the office for his year, that 
then he shall he amerced in twenty i^ounds fine P 

Alas ! how empty would be that treasury, in our 
day, that had no other source of supply than the 
fines that should be paid by those who " will not 
stand to the election," be the office what it may ! 
Unfortunately for the profit of the thing, our modern 
Carvers and Bradfords need no such stimulus to their 
patriotism as a penalty of twenty pounds for refusing 
to serve their country. 

I might, if time permitted, ask you to look at the 
laws they enacted for the management of the economi- 
cal interests of the colony, — the maintenance of 
highways as a public charge, the establishment 
of public registries of deeds, and various other mea- 
sures, which have become so familiar from use that 
we forget the credit which is due to the wisdom that 
devised them. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 41 

Were we to pursue our investigations, we might 
discover how early that system of legislation began 
to be adopted, which seeks, by penal enactments, to 
extirpate bad personal habits, while the tastes and 
passions and propensities that generate these habits 
are in their full vigor. 

Among these is one against the " great abuse of 
taking tobacco, in a very uncivil manner, openly in 
the town-streets, and as men pass upon the highways, 
and also in the fields, or as men are at work in the 
woods and fields, to the neglect of their labors, and 
the great reproach of this government^ But I greatly 
fear that this " Maine Law " against a filthy habit 
soon fell dead upon the statute-book ; and that the 
world will go on smoking, in defiance alike of royal 
counterblasts and Puritan legislation, of soiled carpets 
and domestic discomfort. 

There is another class of laws standing upon the 
statute-book of Plymouth colony, which, in justice to 
the men of that day, ought not to be passed over in 
silence ; and that is the laws under which what are 
there called " Quaker Ranters or other notoriouse 
heritiques," including such men as Lyford and Old- 
ham, found so cold a reception, and so determined a 
resolution to exclude them from the colony. 

That this should have been done by the very men 
who had dared every thing, and endured all things, 
for the free exercise of conscience, has been regarded 
as a most culpable and inexcusable inconsistency of 



42 BRIDGEWATER 

conduct. But, in this, we are in danger of doing them 
gross injustice. That they had been born before the 
light of religious tolerance had been shed upon 
the nations, was their misfortune, it may be ; and that 
they were born with human passions and weaknesses, 
as they were with human forms, may detract from 
their claims upon the respect of others. But wherein, 
after all, consists the ground of censure and reproach, 
that men, who had gone so far and suffered so much 
to find a place where they should be free from intru- 
sion and outside annoyance, should have felt disturbed 
and angry to be followed, and jostled in the very 
sanctuary of their own homes, by men who had done 
nothing to aid them, and felt no sympathy with them, 
in faith or taste, or desire for the advancement of the 
colony '? 

It was to them like the intrusion of an unwelcome 
visitor into one's family circle, who comes to cavil and 
find fault, to call the master hard names, and plague 
and pester the inmates by rude deportment and bad 
manners. It is fashionable to call this intolerance and 
persecutio7i ; and, much as we may lament the igno- 
rance and folly that sought by such means to keep 
out heresy and schism, we should, I apprehend, ascer- 
tain, if we pursued the inquiry, that there was much 
less of a spirit of persecution in these measures of 
government, than of a desire and determination to be 
let alone themselves. 

But, pleasant as it would be to dwell upon the his- 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 43 

tory of the social and political condition of the colony, 
in which many connected with the early history of 
Bridgewater took a part, time compels me to forego 
the one, while I briefly call your attention to the 
other. 

For twelve years after the settlement of Plymouth, 
the colony contained but a single town. Duxbury 
was formed into a church and town in 1632, and was 
followed by Scituate in 1636. Bridgewater formed 
the tenth, in order of time, of these little bodies politic 
into which the colony was divided. 

I can scarcely refer to one circumstance, in the 
organization of the colonies of New England, which 
exerted so marked and lasting an influence upon their 
prosperity, their strength, and their ultimate success, 
as the subdivision of their territory into townships, 
and the creation of these into corporate bodies for 
municipal purposes. 

I know not to what happy thought, or to what cir- 
cumstance in their experience, we owe this then novel 
arrangement of the parts in relation to the whole. It 
was not probably so much the result of any particular 
foresight, as of that ready tact and excellent common 
sense which so often guided them in the measures 
they adopted. Originally identified with their church 
organizations, each of these corporations became 
actors in the political as well as the spiritual affairs 
of the colony ; while to their charge was committed 
much of the management of its economical concerns. 



44 BRIDGEWATER 

Through these, bodies of citizens were frequently 
brought together to confer with each other, and to 
discuss topics of a common interest, till a common 
sentiment was created ; and the interests of these, col- 
lectively, went to make up very much of that which 
we call the commonwealth. The effect of this is seen 
in the universal readiness with which the people of 
New England engage in the discussion of popular 
questions in popular debates, which travellers amongst 
us have so often admired. But it enters no less 
decidedly into the business of government. Each of 
these little republics exercises a governmental control 
within itself, independent of that of the state, though 
altogether in harmony with it. And when, at the 
final rupture of the province with the mother country, 
the organized government of the whole body politic 
became extinct, civil order was maintained, moneys 
were raised, the trainbands organized and sent into the 
field, and the scenes of Lexington and Bunker Hill 
enacted, by the combined action of the citizens of 
independent towns. 

Nor is it in their political influence alone that 
these little democracies act so important a part in 
our social organization : they supply one of the strong 
ties of local association and attachment that bind the 
citizen to his country. It is something more than 
country ; it is something more even than home. It 
is not merely the hill that looked so tall to us in our 
childhood, nor the tree beneath whose shade we played, 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 45 

nor the old familiar sciioolhouse in which we first 
carved the rude initials of our names, that bind us so 
strongly, in after-days, to that magic circle within 
which were clustered what go to make up our earliest 
home. These are all associated in our memory with 
the name and history of some town or village, till it 
becomes a part of our very selves. Men may tell us 
that these are " bodies corporate," and that, in the 
eye of the law, they have neither souls to animate 
nor hearts to feel. But when the dust of a parent 
has been mingled with its soil; when the grass on 
some little mound, where we have laid away the rich- 
est of the heart's treasures, has been moistened by the 
tears of affection, — the man is unworthy of the form 
he wears whose soul is not knit with a tie of holy 
communion with every spot and scene and old fami- 
liar name which go to make up that physical and 
moral and social entity, the town, where he was born, 
or in whose prosperity he has shared in the struggles 
and successes of middle life. 

The first grant of the plantation, afterwards incor- 
porated into the town of Bridgewater, was made by 
the colony to Duxbury, as a compensation for the 
loss of territory occasioned by the creation of Marsh- 
field into a township in 1645. 

It embraced a territory of eight miles square, but 
was afterwards increased to ninety-six square miles ; 
but, like similar grants from the court, it was in the 
nature of a pre-emption right, whereby the grantees 



46 BRIDGEWATER 

became authorized to acquire the title to the soil from 
the native proprietors. In accordance with this prin- 
ciple, a committee of the grantees, consisting of Miles 
Standish, Samuel Nash, many years sheriff of the 
colony, and Constant Southworth, whose mother had 
married Governor Bradford, was appointed to obtain 
the requisite title-deeds from the good old Massasoit, 
within whose jurisdiction this territory was situated. 
The very names of this committee are a sufficient gua- 
ranty of honorable and fair dealing on the part of the 
purchasers ; and we find, among the muniments of 
their title, a deed of the date of 1649, bearing the 
handmark of that constant and early friend of 
the white man, under the name of Ousamequin. 

Tradition points out the spot where this act of pur- 
chase was completed, which once bore the name of 
" Sachem's Rock." * But it is sad to think, that, 
of all that race who then peopled this region, nothing 
but tradition now remains. It is sad to recall in 
how short a time not a drop of the blood of the 
Sachem of Pokanoket, whose hand of friendship wel- 
comed our fathers to these shores, was to be found 
in the veins of any living being. 

True, it was a long and bloody struggle that closed 
the tragic history of his race. Scarce a vestige of the 
homes of his warriors can now be traced ; and save 



* It is situated in what is now East Bridgewater, and still bears the name of 
" Sachem's Rock." 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 47 

some such uncouth memorial as is appended to the 
deed of these lands, or is now and then turned up by 
the furrow in some rude implement of husbandry 
or savage warfare, nothing remains to tell us of the 
once-powerful tribe that fished in these streams, and 
hunted in these forests, and lit their council-fires 
around these scenes of prosperous industry and 
thrift. 

" The red men have passed, 
Like the strewn leaves of autumn dispersed by the blast." 

But, to the honor of the founders of Bridgewater, a 
disposition to deal fairly with the aboriginal proprie- 
tors of the soil was ever manifested, so long as any 
claim remained to be adjusted. We find them, in 
1686, raising a committee to "bargain, buy, and pay 
for any just interest" that Josiah Sachem had in the 
town of Bridgewater ; which was soon after honorably 
and satisfactorily done. And it should be remem- 
bered, in this connection, that this was written a 
few years after the termination of Philip's war, in 
which, though the town suffered less in comparison 
than most of the frontier settlements, its inhabitants 
took a brave and active part ; and, though the claim 
here set up was not by one of the Wampanoags, it 
was not always easy to discriminate, in the feelings 
of the sufferers, between the different members of 
a race who had carried on war in the same savage 
manner. 



48 BRIDGEWATER 

To the usual horrors of an Indian warfare, there 
had been united a courage and a determination on the 
part of the wily chief of Montaup,* and a wide-spread 
union of the tribes of New England, that threatened 
extermination to the white men. It had been literally 
a death-struggle of the two races. Nor can we, at 
this day, form any adequate conception of the constant 
apprehension under which the settlers of these towns 
had lived. No spot was safe. The very darkness 
of midnight was no shelter against the prowling 
savage. Even the church in which they worshipped 
was converted into a fortress, in 1675, by means of 
palisadoes, "for the safety of the town in the time 
of danger, to be made," says the record, " with half 
trees, seven feet above the ground, six rood long and 
nine rood wide, besides the flankers every quarter or 
squadron to doe each of them a side or an end ; " 
and it was within such a shelter as this only that 
they had dared to meet even for the purpose of 
worshipping God. 

From the few notices that remain of the part which 
the inhabitants took in that struggle with Philip, we 
may judge somewhat of its extent by the numbers 
who engaged in the active duty of soldiers. There 
were not, at that time, more than fifty persons capable 
of bearing arms in the town ; and, from the remote- 



* The mode of spelling the name of the seat of King Philip here adopted is 
believed to be that used b}' the Indians : the name, as commonly received, is " Jlount 
Hope." 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 49 

ness of the seaboard, we are told, " they were strongly- 
urged to desert their dwellings, and repair to the 
towns by the seaside." But, so far from complying 
with this suggestion, we find seventeen of their num- 
ber at one time hastening to the relief of Mattapoiset 
and the people of Swansey ; and, on another occasion, 
twenty of their number encountering a much larger 
body of the enemy, and taking seventeen of them 
prisoners. 

But, in the disposition of those prisoners, we are 
obliged to open a page in the history of the colony, 
over which it would be well for their memories if 
oblivion could draw a friendly veil. I have spoken of 
the general sense of justice with which the early colo- 
nists treated the native tribes around them ; and we 
all know with what sorrow the good Robinson la- 
mented that they " had not converted some before 
they had killed any " of these sons of the forest, when 
he heard of the deadly encounter between Standish and 
Pecksuot, the trieacherous boaster of his strength 
and prowess, and in which the latter was slain. 

But the circumstance to which I allude was the 
order of the court, in 1676, " that all such as had any 
Indian captive, above the age of fourteen years, should 
dispose of the same out of the colony by the first of 
the next December, on pain of forfeiting every such 
Indian or Indians to the use of the colony." 

I would gladly record some decided disavowal of 
such a measure by the people of Bridgewater; but 



,50 BRIDGEWATER 

justice requires me to transcribe a vote of the 21st 
August, 1676, upon the question, "Who should have 
the money that was made of the Indians that were sold 
last 1 " alluding to the prisoners already mentioned, 
who had been taken by the Bridgewater soldiers, and 
had been sold at Plymouth by order of the court. 

The record reads in these words : " And the vote 
passed, that the soldiers that took them should have 
the money. The contrary being called, I see but three 
men, at most, who hold up their hands to the con- 
trary." It should be borne in mind, that the custom 
of enslaving captives taken in war was long regarded 
as an act of merciful commutation for the forfeiture of 
the life which they had incurred ; and that it is difficult 
for us to measure the advance that has been made in 
the science of political morality between the sentiments 
which then universally prevailed, and the feeling of 
New England now, that denies the right of property 
in human beings. It may have been deemed a mea- 
sure of necessity for the safety of the colonists, to 
dispose of those bold, fierce warriors beyond the possi- 
bility of return ; and therefore it was that they sold 
them away into slavery. But, whatever might have 
been the feelings and sentiment of the General Court 
of the colony, I cheerfully accept, for the men of 
Bridgewater, the construction which has been put 
upon the vote which I have just quoted by one of her 
worthiest sons, who, amidst the honors he has received 
in another State, has never ceased to be sensitive to 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 51 

her honor,* that " this disposition of these prisoners 
was so repulsive to the feelings and obnoxious to the 
principles of the Bridgewater people, that they would 
not permit the money for which they were sold to 
come into the general treasury ; and they voted ' that 
the soldiers that took them should have it.' " 

And this view I am happy to find strengthened by 
the known and openly avowed opinions of their vene- 
rable pastor, Mr. Keith, who, to his honor be it 
remembered, when the question was submitted to the 
clergy of the colony what should be done with 
the wife and little son of Philip, who had been taken 
prisoners, strongly maintained the duty of exer- 
cising mercy, against the judgment of many of his 
clerical brethren. His feeling would have been to 
spare the little lad, then but nine years of age, from 
the life of slavery in Bermuda into which he was 
eventually sold.-]* I am the more confirmed in this 
favorable judgment of the views of the people of 
this town upon the subject of slavery, from the fact, 
that as late as 1754, when there were in the county of 



* Hon. Elijah Hayward, of McConnelsville, Ohio, formerly Commissioner of 
the Land Office at Washington, Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, &c., — a 
lineal descendant, in the fifth degree, from Thomas Hayward, one of the earliest set- 
tlers in Bridgewater. 

t The following extract from the letter of the Eev. !Mr. Keith serves to show 
how the clergy of that day illustrated and tested questions of a politico-moral cha- 
racter: "I long to hear what becomes of Philip's wife and son. I know there is 
some difficulty in that Psalm cxxxvii. 8, 9 ; though I think it may be considered 
whether there be not some specialty and somewhat extraordinary in it. That law, 
Deut. xxiv. 16, compared with the commended example of Amaziah, 2 Chron. xxv. 4, 
doth sway much with me in the case under consideration." 



52 BRIDGEWATER 

Plymoiitli one hundred and thirty-three slaves, and in 
the whole province nearly five thousand, the statistics 
from which I have quoted do not show a single slave 
in Briclgewater! All honor to such abolition, that 
begins the work of discarding slavery, black or white, 
at home, and speaks so much more effectively by 
example than the cheap tribute of philippic and 
invective ! 

The settlement of the town was begun, on the part 
of the proprietors, in 1650, in the part now called West 
Bridgewater; though it seems that one family had 
come from Salem, and settled here, four years before 
that time. This was the well-known family of Edson, 
whose members, for so many years, took so leading a 
part in the aifairs of the town and province. It was 
the first interior town settled in the colony ; but it 
was not until the 3d June, 1656, that it was incorpo- 
rated as such. This was done, in the briefest possible 
terms, by the simple order, " that henceforth Duxbury 
new plantation be allowed to be a township by itself, 
distinct from Duxbury, and to be called by the name 
of Bridgewater."* From that time, she took her 
place among the little bodies politic of Plymouth, 
until that colony was merged in her more powerful, 
and, as was sometimes thought, grasping neighbor. 
But whether we contemplate her history in its con- 



* It nowhere appears, that I can learn, why this name -was adopted rather 
than that of any other of the towns of Old England; though possibly some of its 
early settlers may have come from the English Bridgewater. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 53 

nection with that of the Old Colony, or of Massachu- 
setts as a province, or as an independent common- 
wealth, we shall find that she has sustained her share 
of every public duty and burden, and has illustrated, 
in the character of her children, those public and 
domestic virtues which command respect, while they 
insure thrift and independence. It has therefore 
been with a just and honest pride, that her sons and 
her sons' sons, who are scattered all over the Union, 
have watched her progress, and felt that her honor 
was in no small degree identical with their own. 
And it is with such feelings that some of these have 
come back to-day, to revive old associations, and 
listen to the recital of some of the reminiscences 
which the recurrence of the day is calculated to 
awaken. 

To more than one of these, I ought to express my 
acknowledgment for the aid I have received, even in 
the imperfect manner in which I am able to present 
the topics suitable for the occasion ; * and, as I recall 
this, I am painfully reminded how much better jus- 
tice would have been done to the subject in other 
hands, had I not yielded judgment to inclination, by 
following impulses awakened by the memory of an 
ancestry whose history is associated with that of this 
ancient town. 

* Among these, I ought to mention Judge Hayward, of Ohio, and, in special 
manner, Ellis Ames, Esq., of Canton, a native of Bridgewater, whose accuracy and 
learning as an antiquary are in keeping with the readiness with which he imparts 
to others the results of his own labors. 



54 BRIDGEWATER 

And let us not forget the labors of liim who was 
so eminently the historian of Bridgewater. Bound by 
the strong ties of kindred and affection to this his 
native town, he gave to it the fruits of the taste and 
diligence of an antiquary, in a volume which must 
ever serve as the storehouse of its early and genealo- 
gical annals. 

Descended from one of the "forefathers,"* and 
cherishing, as he did, a veneration for their memories, 
and the filial attachment of a son to Bridgewater, 
how would his gentle and genial spirit have rejoiced 
in this day! and with what delight would he have 
greeted these descendants of his early friends and 
associates; and of those, scarcely less his familiars, 
who felled the first forest-tree and planted the first 
cornfield on the spot where we are assembled! 

Through a long and honored life, he shared alike 
the confidence of the public and the personal regard 
of his friends. 

As an antiquary, he exhibited the unobtrusive 
and patient industry of " Old Mortality," in chipping 
out the fading memorials of a departed race. 

And if, on this occasion, we bring forth, like the 
Romans of old, the images of the departed whose 
names we ought to recall, we should be doing injus- 
tice to ourselves, if, among them, we failed to give an 
honored place to that of Mitchell. 



* Experience Mitchell, who came over in the " Anne," in 1623, the third ship 
that arrived. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 00 

In turning more directly to incidents of local his- 
tory, it is obvious that time will admit of but little 
detail. All I can hope to do is to seize upon enough 
of these to serve as exponents of the moral, social, or 
political condition of its people from one period to 
another. 

There is one conviction that presses upon the mind, 
in glancing along the pages of the early records of a 
state or town ; and that is, how inadequately the 
actors in passing events measure their relative impor- 
tance at the time of their occurrence. Time only 
furnishes the true test for this, when their relation to 
the after-events in history have been developed. If, 
for instance, we look into the records of the Pro- 
vincial Congress, then in session, for any notice of 
the battle of Bunker Hill, though fought almost 
within hearing of its members, we find it incidentally 
spoken of as " the late attack of the king's troops at 
Bunker Hill ; " little dreaming it was to be, in its 
consequence, one of the great events of the century. 
And so, on a smaller sphere, we look in vain, in the 
records of this town, for any thing more than a passing 
notice of what we now know were incidents of great 
historic interest. 

While the location and allotments of their lands, 
the boundaries of their roads, and even the marks of 
ownership of their domestic animals, are carefully 
registered, Philip's war, the subversion of their char- 
ter, the usurpation of Andros, and the blotting-out of 



66 BllIDGEWATEK 

the political existence of one colony by the oversha- 
dowing growth of another, scarcely occupy a para- 
graph in these records. 

There is enough to show that these were indeed 
exciting topics in the minds of the people of that 
day ; but they left no declaration upon their records 
of the impression which these events had made. 

The first recorded meeting of the inhabitants of the 
town was held on the 3d November, 1656. 

Although one of the primary objects of these town 
organizations was to maintain a competent and pious 
ministry, I do not find any action upon the subject 
till January, 1660, when provision was made for the 
" carrying along the Lord's-Day exercise," by an offer 
of thirty pounds, or " twenty pounds and his diet," to 
Mr. Bunker, " to come hither, and supply our wants 
in the way of the ministry." This was indeed a day 
of small things. Money they had almost none ; and 
even the corn which they made, to a considerable 
extent, a circulating medium, could only be produced 
by much toil, and often at the peril of life from a 
lurking foe. 

Of their first meeting-house we know little. Such 
as it was, it served its purpose for a few years. But, 
in 1671, arrangements were made for the erection 
of one forty feet in length, twenty-six in width, 
and " fourteen feet studs," at an expense of " four- 
score pounds," not including " the making of galleries 
or sealing." The means, however, for constructing 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 57 

this humble edifice were not raised by vote till 1673, 
when it was to be levied " ten pounds in money, ten 
pounds in Indian corn, and the rest in marchandahle 
boards, at four shillings a hundredth.'''' 

In the selection of a minister, the town seems to 
have been particularly fortunate. The records detail 
their agreement, in 1664, with " James Keith, a stu- 
dent of divinity," whereby, among other things, they 
were to cover the minister's house a second time ; " to 
glaze the windows as soon as they could, provided 
they can get glass for boards ; " and there were to 
be two hundred bricks furnished for constructing 
the chimneys, backs, hearths, and oven, payable in 
corn. 

You may regard these as trifling details ; but they 
tell, more vividly than any language can describe, 
the humble style in which these settlers lived, and the 
straits and circumstances to which they submitted, for 
so many years after they had taken upon themselves 
the character and duties of an independent municipa- 
lity. Even their minister's house was to be glazed, 
and furnished with a brick chimney and oven, only 
on condition that they could procure the materials in 
exchange for the products of their own labor. Mr. 
Keith was a native of Scotland, had been educated 
at the university of Aberdeen, and was recommended to 
the people of Bridgewater by that renowned divine, 
Dr. Increase Mather. And, although the limits of 
these remarks will not allow me to speak of indivi- 



58 BRIDGEWATER 

dual character in detail, it is pleasant to record that 
the connection of Mr. Keith with the people of his 
charge was alike honorable and creditable to both ; 
and he seems to have stamped his own character upon 
this community. He preached his first sermon, it is 
said, from a rock in the open air, — typical of that 
rock on which his church should rest. He lived to 
see a population large enough for three parishes, and 
a minister settled over one of them besides his own,* 
and a considerable portion of another township carved 
from this-; and was gathered to the reward of his la- 
bors, at the ripe age of seventy-six, in the year 1719. 

It is sad to be reminded, as we glance over the 
pages of these records, how early the second genera- 
tion began to illustrate, in practice, the truth of some 
of those rugged dogmas in theology which the first 
generation so stoutly maintained. There was, we have 
reason to fear, a spirit of depravity in the very earliest 
offshoots from the Pilgrim stock, when we read how, 
in 1686, the town chose " men to look after the boys 
on the sabbath days, that they be not disorderly ; " 
and three grave gentlemen, — John Ames, senior, 
Thomas Snell, and Edward Mitchell, — worthy ances- 
tors of a numerous and honored posterity, were selected 
for this difficult and responsible duty. 

But without stopping to discuss points in polemical 
divinity, or why boys at that day required looking 

* The South Parish was incorporated in 1716, and the Rev. Benjamin Allen 
ordained as the first pastor, July 9, 1718. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 59 

after, and leaving to modern reformers the graver 
question, why the tables have been so completely 
turned, that it is the boys now that look after the 
men, in their haste to discard the reverence as well 
as the theology of their fathers, I turn with more 
pleasure to the interest which, from an early period, 
the town has taken in the cause of education. 

To Massachusetts is the honor due of having first 
devised free schools, in 1647, that " learning," in the 
beautiful language of the day, " might not be buried 
in the graves of their ancestors." In 1663, the court 
at Plymouth recommended a measure like this to the 
several towns. 

But though, in the very infancy of the town, its 
inhabitants had shown the interest they felt in the 
cause of education, by contributing twelve pounds, in 
Indian corn, for the benefit of Harvard College, — for 
which, in behalf of that . university, I now tender 
acknowledgments to their memory, — I do not find 
any corporate action for establishing schools within 
the town till about the year 1700, when "a scholar 
who came out from England, whose name is Thomas 
Martin," was engaged for four years to keep a school 
in four places in the town in each year, — three 
months in each place. And it was yet five years 
before they seem to have discovered, and even then 
but partially, what everybody now understands so 
well, — the superior qualifications of woman for in- 
structing the young. They then voted " to provide 



60 BRIDGEWATER 

four school-dames for to instruct small children in 
reading." 

But, though entering late into the field, we are 
warranted, from its whole history, in believing that 
few towns have been more uniform or consistent in 
supplying to the young the means of education.* 
Though there were among the early settlers few who 
laid claim to much scholarship, there were none 
who wanted that general intelligence and practical 
good sense so much more useful to men in their con- 
dition. There was, in this respect, a remarkable 
uniformity among them, and scarcely, if any, less 
remarkable identity in their religious faith and ob- 
servance of their moral duties. And, as an evidence 
of this, it is believed by those who have made it a 
subject of investigation, that drunkenness and its 
kindred vices were unknown among them ; and not a 
single conviction of an inhabitant of the town, for any 
crime involving moral turpitude, was had while Ply- 
mouth existed as a colony. 

When a better system of religion or of practical 



* Since preparing tliis address, I have been kindly fiu-nished, by a worthy and 
distinguished member of the Edson family, Rev. Dr. Edson, of Lowell, with ex- 
tracts from two deeds, bearing date June 20, 1722, from Josiah Edson, known as 
"Justice Edson," son of Deacon Edson, named in the address. In one of these, he 
gives to the town of Bridgewater thi-ee parcels of land, " for the encoui'agement of 
a grammar school among them for ever; " and, in the other, he gives to the inha- 
bitants of the South Precinct a tract of land, " for the promoting and encouraging 
of learning among them, . . . towards defraying tlie charge of a school or schools 
in said precinct." 

These lands were the foundation of the " Edson Fund," which, upon the divi- 
sion of the town, was distributed among its several parts. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 61 

faith than this can be discovered, the world may begin 
to dispense with the old-fashioned notions of Robin- 
son and Brewster. And yet it was not because the 
men of that day were wanting in spirit or energy or 
enterprise. We find among them, not only those who 
were competent to guide in the affairs of the town, 
but leading spirits in the colony, — Hayward, a mili- 
tary leader, when to be such was evidence of courage 
and capacity and of public confidence and respect, as 
well as a magistrate and a judge ; the Bretts,* honored 
in church and state; Willis,"!* the first representa- 
tive in the colonial General Court ; the Edsons ^ and 
the Mitchells. These are but among the names upon 
which the memory rests, when it dwells upon the 
early history of this spot. 

But, invidious as it might seem to discriminate 
between these names, it would be far more so, if, 
in speaking of those who gave a character to the 
first generation, and whose teaching and influence 
trained up those who were to be worthy to succeed 
them, I passed over the wives and mothers who 
came here into the wilderness to give to the spot 



* William Brett was ordained ruling elder of the church soon after Mr. Keith. 
Two of his sons were deacons of the church ; and another, Elihu, a magistrate and 
justice of the C. C. Pleas. 

t John Willis was first deacon of Rev. Mr. Keith's church, and represented the 
town in the Plymouth General Court for twenty-five years. 

I Deacon Samuel Edson came from Salem, and settled in West Bridgewater. 
The name was among the most distinguished of the early families in the town. 
Col. .Josiah was gi-aduatcd at Cambridge" in 17.30, and was one of the mandamus 
counsellors at the commencement of the Revolution. 



62 BRIDGEWATER 

its strongest attraction, — the simple charm of home. 
They came here while the howl of the wolf was yet 
heard, from the deep forest around them, at midnight. 
Often and again did they clasp their little ones, with 
more than a mother's tenderness, as they saw the sha- 
dowy form of the savage stealthily prowling around 
their scattered dwellings ; or waited in fearful sus- 
pense for the return of a hushand from those bold 
forrays in which they sought for the foe in his lair. 

But history does not tell of a mother's courage that 
quailed, or a woman's fortitude that shrunk, amidst 
these dangers. 

It was the lessons and trainings of such mothers 
that supplied the nerve which carried the colonies 
through the Indian and French wars, and found every 
man a soldier, and in arms, as the alarm-cry went out 
over hill and through valley on the 19th April, 1775. 

In considering the elements of growth and prospe- 
rity of the town, I ought not to pass over in silence 
the early development of the mechanical enterprise 
and skill which have so long distinguished its inhabi- 
tants. Though essentially an agricultural community, 
the useful and practical arts seem early to have found 
here a favorable soil. 

There is something in the exhibition of the mecha- 
nic arts so nearly akin to the exercise of creative 
power, that we can never witness it without interest. 
But how ought this interest to be enhanced, when we 
are told, as we are by the venerable historian of the 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 63 

town, that it was here the first small-arms ever made 
in America were manufactured, the first solid cannon 
cast and bored, and the first thread of cotton spun by 
machinery ; and that the first nail ever completely cut 
and headed by machinery, at a single operation, in the 
world, was made here ! * 

"Who will estimate the debt that the world owes to 
the ingenuity of Orrf and his associates, and the 
inventive genius of Rogers, followed up, as they have 
been, by the enterprise and skill of the dwellers 
amidst these rural scenes'? It has earned independ- 
ent competency for the citizen ; it has added count- 
less value to the nation's wealth; and, though the 
period of which I am speaking was but the dawning of 
that day which made New England a mechanical and 
manufacturing as well as a commercial people, it sup- 
plied one of the strongest elements of our national 
union, when it made one part of this great continent 
dependent upon another for the sources of its wealth 
and prosperity, as well as of individual comfort and 
luxury. 



* The first nails of this kind were manufactured by Samuel Rogers, of East 
Bridgewater. 

+ Hon. Hugh Orr, who was a member of the Senate in 1786, fii'st mamifacturcd 
small-arms and cannon here. He employed two brothers Barr to construct carding, 
spinning, and roping machines at his works in East Bridgewater, prior to 1786 ; and 
about that time, Thomas Somers, under direction of Mr. Orr, constructed other 
machines for carding, roping, and spinning cotton. About the same time, he em- 
ployed one McClure to weave jeans and 'corduroys by hand, with a fly-shuttle. 
" About 1748, he made five thousand stands of arms for the Province of Massachu- 
setts Bay, which were deposited in Castle William: nearly all, however, were carried 
off by the British when they evacuated the town of Boston." 



64 BRIDGEWATER 

But I am reluctantly compelled to forego any 
further detail of the mcidents m the early history of 
the tOAvn. 

The opening of the second century of her history 
found the colonies embroiled in the last of the " old 
French wars ; " which was soon followed by the 
Sugar and Stamp Acts, and that course of measures 
which resulted in the war of the Revolution and the 
independence of our country. 

But the century through whose vicissitudes she 
had passed had been working mighty changes in her 
condition. 

The last of the " forefathers " and the " first-comers " 
had gone to their rest. The humble dwelling which 
Deacon Edson had reared here in 1646 had gathered 
around it near six hundred others, although the terri- 
tory had been shorn of its proportions by the incorpo- 
ration of Abington and Pembroke. The clack of the 
little mill which he had erected on " Town River," and 
which had fed these pioneers, had long been silent. 
The feeble church, which, under the guidance of Mr. 
Keith and Elder Brett, we had left struggling into 
life, had multiplied into five parishes, with their 
respective churches and pastors ; * while a population 



* The South Parish was incorporated in 1716; and, at the time spolien of,- 
Rev. John Shaw was its pastor. The East was incorporated in 1723; and Rev. 
John Angier was its pastor. The North was incorporated in 1738 ; and the Rev. John 
Porter its pastor. Titicut Parish was incorporated in 1743 ; and the Rev. Solomon 
Reed its pastor; while the Rev. Daniel Perkins, the successor of Mr. Keith, was the 
pastor of the original parish. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 65 

of near four thousand souls were scattered over this 
territory. Instead of sending, as she had done, for 
" a scholar that came out of England " to teach her 
schools, eleven of her own sons had themselves 
become scholars, and shared in the honors of our 
university. 

All this, let us remember, had been the fruits, not of 
royal bounty, or even the distinguished advantages 
of superior local position. Her sons had brought 
with them no hoarded wealth, nor had any tide of 
successful foreign commerce enriched their coffers. 
They had gone through the struggles incident to the 
infancy, weakness, and poverty of such a settlement, 
had subdued a rugged soil, and had laid the founda- 
tions of a free and prosperous community too deep to 
be easily shaken. 

And though this was followed by the long, wasting 
war of the Revolution, in which her resources were 
exhausted and her treasury bankrupt, there was 
within her a recuperative power which no difficulty 
could overcome, no adversity paralyze. She had 
within her a body of enterprising and intelligent men, 
— Pilgrims no longer, Puritans modified by the very 
world's respect which they had been winning, — who, 
severed for ever from the burdens and restraints of a 
foreign government, were now at liberty to give free 
play to the spirit that had descended upon them from 
the men of the " Mayflower." 

But, before we venture to trace the effects of these 



66 BRIDGEWATEK 

causes in their results, I should be doing injustice to 
the men who took part in the events of the opening- 
scenes of the second century of the history of this 
community, if I omitted to speak of these a little more 
in detail. I have referred to the progress that had 
been then made from its condition a century earlier. 
But we ought not to be misled by such comparisons. 

It would be pleasant if we could look in upon the 
social condition of the men of 1756, — their houses, 
their style of living, and the inventories of their 
goods and estates, — that we might compare them 
with 1856. 

Neither time nor means within my command will 
admit of my doing this beyond the briefest notice. 
But a single fact may serve as an indication of what 
such a comparison might show. 

In 1756, a tax was laid upon carriages in the Pro- 
vince, for the encouragement of the manufacture of 
linen. And it appears that there was neither coach 
nor chariot in all the Old Colony, and only four 
chaises, not one of which was in Bridgewater ; and 
only four " chairs " were owned within the town. 

But it should be remembered that the pillion and 
the horse-block had not yet disappeared before the 
march of modern refinement. 

I have been furnished, through the kindness of the 
Register of Deeds in this county,* — for from every 

* William S. Russell, Esq. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 67 

man, who ever had his home in Bridgewater, I have 
been sure of sympathy and aid, — with four invento- 
ries of estates from the probate-office : one from Ply- 
mouth, and another from Bridgewater, of a hundred 
years ago ; the other two from the latter town, of an 
earlier date, one of which was of the Hev. Mr. Keith, 
in 1719. 

Though it would be taxing your indulgence too far 
to give these in detail, permit me to glance at them, 
that we may see, for a moment, how far the luxuries 
of our fathers fell short of the necessaries of our own 
day. 

The total of Mr. Keith's property — for preaching 
and property do not seem to have run in the same 
channel any more in that day than in this — amounted 
to a hundred and sixty-seven pounds eleven shillings, 
thirty pounds of which was his library, and seventy- 
two pounds household furniture, including one looking- 
glass ; which might lead one to infer that he found 
the reflections on original sin, free agency, and the 
decrees which these ponderous tomes of polemical 
divinity suggested, far more suited to his taste than 
the reflection of his own benevolent countenance 
from the only mirror that his house afforded. 

In the inventory of good Deacon Atwood, of Ply- 
mouth, in 1755, we cannot but be struck with an illus- 
tration of the proverbially superior thrift and foresight 
of the second over the first officer of every church. 

Though possessed of more than ten times as much 



68 BRIDGEWATER 

estate as the venerable pastor of Bridgewater, he seems 
to have had a taste somewhat in contrast with that 
of the latter, and tending rather to looking-glasses 
than books ; for we find he possessed three of the 
former, valued together at six pounds sixteen shillings 
and eightpence ; while his whole library was ap- 
praised only at fourteen shillings and sixpence. And, 
while not a cent of silver-ware graced the cupboard of 
the pastor, the deacon was possessed oi five large and 
three tea spoons of that precious metal. 

This inventory, too, shows the change that had 
come over the spirit of the age, from the times of 
Carver and Standish, when every man was a soldier, 
or even that later period, when the church itself was 
turned into a fortress ; for we find, as the only relics 
of his martial equipment, " one sword " and " one gun- 
lock." 

But, instead of carnal weapons, we find him the 
possessor of one " negro man ; " and that, while 
the good man's pew in his meeting-house was esti- 
mated at but twenty-three pounds six shillings and 
eightpence, this negro man, with the " negro bed " he 
occupied, were valued at forty-one pounds one shilling 
and fourpence. 

Of the remaining inventory, that of Nathan Ames, 
of Bridgewater, in 1756, amounting to five hundred 
and twenty pounds, ^'ye shillings was the sum total of 
his library ; while one looking-glass served the entire 
family, and one pillion was the only vehicle of trans- 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 69 

portation for the fairer members of it to church or to 
tea-parties. 

In neither of these four inventories do we find 
either a watch or a clock. In neither of those of 
Bridgewater was there an article of silver-plate, even 
to a teaspoon. Nor was there, in either of the four, 
a carpet of any kind. And the nearest approach to a 
piano, in any of them, was the spinning-wheel, the 
hum of whose music was heard in every household in 
that day. 

And yet we may judge, from a comparison of sta- 
tistics, that her growth had been constant and 
healthy, and had more than kept pace with her sister 
towns. 

In 1696, she stood, in the rate of taxation, the 
forty-eighth in the Province; in 1721, she had grown 
to be the sixteenth in valuation; in 1755, she stood 
the ninth in the Province, and above any other town 
in Plymouth County ; and, in 1775, had risen to be 
the eighth in valuation in the whole Province of 
Massachusetts Bay. 

And if we look, for a moment, at the part she took 
in the war of the Revolution, we shall find that she 
never withheld the fruits of her prosperity from the 
common cause in which they were engaged. 

Let us bear in mind, that at no time during the 
war did her male population, above the age of six- 
teen, and able to bear arms, probably exceed a thou- 
sand. 



70 BRIDGEWATER 

I am unable even to approximate the number of 
her troops which were in the service under the call 
of the Province and State ; but I have been shown 
seven requisitions for the Continental service, made 
upon the town from 1779 to 1781, which amounted 
to four hundred and twelve men in this space of three 
years. 

When we remember what a large proportion of 
the productive labor of the town was thus withdrawn, 
we shall the more readily appreciate the extent of 
the burden which fell upon those who remained at 
home. 

Making allowance for the depreciation of money, 
they must have paid, in 1776 and 1777, more than 
three thousand dollars in money. 

In 1778 and 1779, they contributed each year, in 
shoes, stockings, and shirts, for the army, a number 
next to Boston itself; and the beef which they fur- 
nished upon requisition for the army, during 1780, 
must have amounted to more than five thousand 
dollars, at the rated value which it bore in the 
market. 

I have mentioned these, not as showing the aggre- 
gate of her sacrifices, but as samples of what this 
town, in common with the whole of Massachusetts, 
contributed towards achieving the independence of 
our country. 

I would gladly turn to the rolls of the Provincial 
and Continental troops of that period, and point out 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 71 

the names standing there ; or go to the files of our 
treasury-office, and there sum up the amounts of 
money which were paid into the public chest by the 
people of this town to carry on that war. 

But time will not admit of this; nor, if it did, 
would it do justice to the individual actors by whom 
it was contributed. 

It is little more than an abstraction to tell how 
many men or how much money this or that town fur- 
nished during the Revolution. 

We must go on to the farms and into the dwellings 
of the people of these towns to understand who were 
these men, and whence came this money. Mothers 
giving up their sons to the dangers of the field, and 
the still more fearful perils of the camp; husbands 
leaving to their wives the double task of the farm and 
the household, — are but among the incidents of 
these local histories. There is not a dwelling-house 
in any of these ancient towns, which was standing 
when that struggle began, that could not tell of days 
and nights of incessant toil, of self-denial, and patient, 
unrepining self-sacrifice on the part of its inmates, as, 
year after year, new burdens were imposed upon their 
feeble, wasting resources. 

But I cannot dwell upon this point of our subject 
any farther than to say, that posterity will never 
know as they ought that the war of the Revolution 
was quite as essentially fought, and victory achieved, 
through what was done within these humble dwell- 



72 BRIDGEWATER 

ings by the wives and mothers of that race, as by 
the prowess of arms and the courage of the battle- 
field. 

From scenes like these, I turn to the changes which 
the century that was then opening has wrought within 
this community. 

We sometimes forget how brief is the period 
within which, in our own country, great revolutions 
are effected. We measure the periods of early Eng- 
lish history by centuries and by ages, — the six 
hundred years of the Roman dominion, the four 
hundred of Saxon rule, and the long succession of 
cycles and years before the human mind began to 
expand and grow free in the dawning light of civili- 
zation. 

But here there are those still living in our own 
Commonwealth, within the space of whose life is 
embraced one-half of the entire period of this people's 
history. 

And yet what changes do its social and economical 
statistics present ! 

The goodly territory for which, as its original title- 
deed shows, there were paid seve7i coats, nine hatchets, 
eight hoes, twenty knives, four moose-skins, and ten and 
one-half yards of cotton, has been multiplied into four 
thriving, independent communities. Its sons have 
gone out to people other regions, and swell the num- 
bers of other communities ; while its population has 
grown to more than three times the number which it 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 73 

contained when the century began. Wealth has been 
gathering here in a still greater ratio, till its aggre- 
gate has almost reached the sum of five millions of 
dollars. Her schools have multiplied, till fifty-three 
are open for the education of her twenty-three hun- 
dred children, besides three academies for the higher 
branches of instruction, and a normal school to give 
completeness to the system. 

And if, in addition to these, we seek to measure 
the results of her manufacturing and mechanical 
industry, the statistics just published by the Legisla- 
ture exhibit an aggregate of more than two million of 
dollars by the year. 

There may be richer communities, there may be 
regions where Nature has been more lavish in her 
beauties and her bounty, there may be localities bet- 
ter known to fame, than that where we are now 
assembled ; but where need we look for more certain 
elements of social and individual comfort and inde- 
pendence and happiness than are shared upon this 
portion of the heritage of a free people] 

If, compared with some regions of ripe fertility, its 
soil be hardy, it breeds no miasma to paralyze or 
poison the arm that tills it. 

If the breeze that sweeps over it be at times 
piercing and chill, it brings no pestilence in its train 
to blanch the ruddy glow of health. And if, under 
circumstances like these, the world has high claims 

10 



74 BRIDGEWATER 

upon those who have shared in the benefits and advan- 
tages which are here enjoyed, I greatly misjudge, or 
we should find, if we were to pursue the inquiry, 
that they have not been unfaithful to the trust with 
which they have been charged. 

Delicacy forbids me to speak of the living by name, 
however glad we might be to honor the men who 
have shared the public confidence and our own. Of 
its citizens, five have represented this district in the 
Congress of the United States.* Another of her sons, 
after twenty-four years' service in the halls of Con- 
gress, closed his public career as the second officer 
of the Commonwealth, and has come back to finish a 
long and useful life amidst the scenes where that life 
began, f 

And there have been others to whom it would be 
grateful to allude, who have stood before the public as 
the honored exponents, in church and commonwealth, 
of the tone of morals, and measure of intelligence, 
which have characterized this community. 

But, while I have spoken of the local incidents and 
events, I have not attempted to follow into other 
communities, and upon wider or more distant spheres 
of action, the many who have gone out from the 
bosom of such a mother. 



* Eev. Dr. Keed, Hon. Nahum Mitchell, Hon. William Baylies, Hon. Aaron Ho- 
bart, and Hon. Artemas Hale, the three last of whom were present on this occasion. 

t Hon. John Keed, for many years of Yarmoiith, which district he represented 
in Consrress. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 75 

But go where you may, — into the country, or the 
populous marts of commerce ; to the east or the west ; 
through peopled regions of the old States, or the 
forest-homes and cities and villages of the new, — we 
find her sons, or her sons' sons, doing battle by the 
side of the hardy, the wise, and the strong men of 
the land. I find them healing the sick, preaching 
in the pulpit, and pleading at the bar, — on the bench, 
and in the halls of legislation. I see them reaping 
the fruits of industry and skill on the farm and 
in the workshop, and sharing the rewards of com- 
mercial enterprise and prosperous industry in a thou- 
sand forms. 

I follow them also into the fields of literature, 
read the deep thoughts and treasured lore of the scho- 
lar, and feel my blood tingle and my soul refreshed 
by the inspired pages of the poet. 

Do you ask for names with which to fill this pic- 
ture, and with which to justify the language in which 
I have indulged ? It was the son of a Bridgewater 
father,* who, when the fate of the British treaty hung 
in doubtful poise, and the cloud of war rose dark 
over an impoverished nation, in tones of eloquence 
that have never been surpassed, rolled back that 
cloud, and gave to his country peace and prosperity, 



* Hon. Fisher Ames was the son of Dr. Nathaniel Ames, who removed from 
Bridgewater to Dedham, and a lineal descendant from one of the early settlers of the 
town. 



76 BRIDGEWATER 

that made her great among the greatest nations of 
the earth. 

And, if time permitted me to speak of the men of 
my own profession here, the name of Oakes Angier 
would stand out prominently among the number by 
the acknowledged eminence he attained at the bar 
of the old colony.* 

Take up the catalogue of those who, on the bench 
and in the councils of the State and nation, have held 
places of honor and trust, and count up how many of 
the names that you find there you have read in those 
records, and upon the mossy headstones which tell 
where your own kindred are sleeping, — the Shaws, 
the Haywards, the Whitmans, the Mitchells, the 
Reeds, the Ameses, the Forbeses, and the San- 
gers.j" 



* The following extract, from an epitaph which is inscribed upon a monument 
in the ancient cemetery in West Bridgewater, is from the pen of the late Hon. Judge 
Davis : — 

" Oakes Angier, Esq., Bareistek-at-Law, departed this life, Sept. 1, 1786, in 
the forty-first year of his age, and here lies interred. 

" With a mind vigorous and penetrating, assiduous and indefatigable in busi- 
ness, he soon arrived to eminence in his profession. 

" Seventeen years' practice at the bar, with fidelity, integrity, and ability, 
established his reputation and improved his fortune, but too fatally injured his con- 
stitution in the meridian of life." 

Judge Davis, Lieutenant-Governor Bobbins, and the late Hon. Pliny Merrick, 
father of Judge Merrick, of the Supreme Judicial Court, were among those who 
studied law in his office. 

t Without undertaking to enumerate these, it may be proper to name Chief 
Justice Shaw, grandson of the Rev. John Shaw; Hon. Ezekiel Whitman, late 
Chief Justice of Maine; Hon. Charles E. Forbes, late Judge of our Supreme Court; 
and Hon. George P. Sanger, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, the grandson of 
Rev. Dr. Sanger. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 77 

And as I glance at the roll of the present Congress, 
and find a name there three times repeated, I shall 
hardly be charged with indelicacy if I recall the part 
which the first who bore it took, after his traditionary 
connection with the Massachusetts colony had ceased, 
as one of the Duxbury men, in the event which we 
are now commemorating.* 

Or, if we look for what her sons have done in the 
fields of literature, though time forbids me to dwell 
upon so pleasant a theme, — while we have no cause 
to fear that poesy will not be found this day wedded 
to a name now familiar here, — if I speak of the past, 
I have only to open upon that sublime triumph of 
genius over death itself, the " Thanatopsis," to know 
that one at least of the " Poets of America " has but 
added renown to a name which is associated with the 
memory of the dwellers upon this spot.']' 

I have spoken of the past ; but what am I to say 
of the future of this people, and of our common coun- 



* John Washburn is believed to have been the first Secretaiy of the IMassachu- 
setts Company before the transfer of the charter to Massachusetts. He was born 
in Evesham, in the county of Worcester, and settled in Duxbury as early as 1632, 
where he was joined by, his family, consisting of his wife and two sons, in 1635. ■ 
His son John married a daughter of Experience Mitchell ; and from him the branches 
now so numerous and widely scattered have descended. One of his sons married a 
grand-daughter of Mary Chilton, from whom have sprung a numerous posterity, and 
through which the writer is allowed to lay claim to affinity with one of the early 
settlers of this town. 

t Bryant — for he needs no other distinctive name — was the son of a physician 
boru in Bridgewater, himself the son of a physician who was born and always 
resided in this town. 



78 BRIDGEWATER 

try 1 There are those to whose vision a darker cloud 
is rising over the land than has ever threatened it 
before, — a cloud of discord and disunion, from which 
even the reflected glory of the past gives back no bow 
of hope. 

And it cannot be denied that there is enough to 
excite deep apprehension in the stoutest heart in the 
events of the last few weeks. 

We look in vain for protection or redress in the 
excited passions of political strife. The only hope 
that seems left to us is to be just to ourselves ; to keep 
this moral malaria within its own sphere, by shutting 
out its influence from our borders. Let there be 
union of heart and union of sentiment among free 
men ; let the united action of one section no longer 
triumph in the divisions and personal and party jea- 
lousies of the other, — and the hour of danger and 
apprehension will have passed. 

And is there not hope from the very extremity of 
danger that we seem to have reached 1 Will not the 
blood that has been spilt in the senate-chamber of 
the nation — in a brutal and cowardly blow, struck, 
through a representative of a free State, at constitu- 
tional right, the honor of our own honored Common- 
wealth, and the cause of liberty in the world — 
become an element to cement the divided counsels 
and call forth the united action of every man who 
dares or deserves to be free 1 Let this be done, and 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 79 

every thing is done ; every other element is ah'eady 
shaped at our hand. 

From elements such as we have been considering, 
there can come no danger to the cause of human 
liberty and human progress. The little community 
of whose history I have so imperfectly spoken, is but 
one of a thousand others where there is a reserved 
power cherished and kept alive, and ready for any 
emergency. 

Neither schools nor churches, nor the hallowed 
associations of home, have ceased to educate and 
refine the intellect and affections ; nor have free dis- 
cussion and a free press become impotent to arouse 
to action a love of country among a people to whom 
the past has so much of pride, and the future is so full 
of promise. 

Fraud may triumph for a day, and injustice may 
wreak its power here and there upon its victim ; but, 
thank God, there is a power greater than these, — a 
power that breaks through the chains of error, and 
will bid man at last be free. 



" Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again ; 
The eternal years of God are hers." 



A mighty destiny is before us as a people. The glo- 
rious problem of human development and human 
freedom is being wrought out on the theatre of this 
vast republic. In its accomplishment will be seen 



80 BRIDGEWATER 

the fruits of that enterprise which was cradled in that 
little church at Scrooby, and reared by the watchful- 
ness and prayers of good men, and found a congenial 
home here two hundred and thirty-six years ago. 

Every spot in the old colony is rich with the deeds 
and virtues of the Puritans and their descendants. 
Every spot has sent forth seed, which, borne like 
that of the thistle on every wind, has been scattered 
and has sprung up in every region of this continent. 

Reversing the law that seeks to renovate the decre- 
pitude of years by transfusing young blood into the 
torpid veins of age, the blood that has gone out from 
these ancient bodies politic is found invigorating and 
infusing fresh life into the young communities that 
have sprung up in the forests of the East and along 
the rivers and prairies of the constantly widening 
West. 

Wherever white men have fixed their homes, 
among them have these sons of the old colony been 
busy in rearing the schoolhouse and the church, 
in scattering New-England notions and sentiments, 
and planting institutions which have tempered and 
modified and assimilated the masses that have been 
crowding to our shores, into a national, free, American 
republic. They forget the moral power of that engine 
and these influences who look with such seeming 
apprehension upon the influx of strangers from the 
Old World ; as if the mere physical strength of thews 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 81 

and sinews could stand against the moral and intel- 
lectual power of the trained, educated, self-governed 
denizens of the soil ! 

In this great work of harmonizing and national- 
izing our common country ; in carrying, as it were, the 
borders of New England clear across this wide con- 
tinent ; in planting new Ply mouths on the shores of 
the Pacific, and new Bridgewaters in the valleys of the 
West, — old Bridge water has borne an honored part. 

And now her sons and her sons' sons have come 
together, around the old domestic hearthstone, to 
renew, in the memories and associations of the past, 
the ties that once bound them to this spot, and the 
obligations they owe to their country and their gene- 
ration to spread and perpetuate the good old senti- 
ments and habits and opinions that found so congenial 
a soil in this early home of our fathers. 

And, if they find that prosperous industry and 
thrift have been at work in changing old familiar 
scenes, the generous heart that bade even the stranger 
welcome in days of yore still beats as warmly as it 
then did ; and, though the latch-string has disappeared 
in the progress of refinement, hospitality still opens 
its door as wide to all who would come and share its 
comforts and its courtesies. 

Two centuries have now closed their record of the 

fortunes of this people, and left their memorial in 

the brief yet crowded page of their history. 

11 



82 BRIDGEWATER 

We can go back, at a glance, to the feeble, strug- 
gling infancy and childhood of this community ; but 
its future we can only read in the light of the past. 
In that light we have every thing to hope, and little 
to apprehend. 

A new century is opening amidst the stirring 
scenes, the energized thought, the free, onward move- 
ment, of the nineteenth century, developed in its full 
maturity. 

It will close over other actors, and after changes 
which no human vision can now reach ; and happy 
will it be if it shall witness fruition as unimpaired and 
hopes as bright as those which mark its opening day. 

And standing, as we do, on that narrow point, 
where, turning from the past, fancy calls up the sha- 
dowy forms that crowd the vision of the future, I 
cannot better close this poor effort to do justice to 
our theme than in the language of one whom any 
community might be proud to call her own : — 



" My heart is awed within me when I think 
Of the great miracle that still goes on 
In silence round me, — the perpetual work 
Of a creation finished, yet i-euewed 
For ever. 

Lo ! all grow old, and die ; but see again, 
How, on the faltering footsteps of decay, 
Youth presses ! 

Life mocks the idle hate 
Of his arch-enemy Death; yea, seats himself 
Upon the tyrant's throne, — the sepulchre, — 
And of the triumphs of his ghastlj' foe 
Makes his own nourishment." 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



88 



The Boston Brass Band played an appropriate 
piece of music. 



James R,eed, A. B., of Boston, delivered the fol- 
lowing — 

POEM. 

Time has always been a river, 

And eternity its sea, 
Where, upon some leaf or sliver, 

Men have floated ceaselessly. 

Now 'midst verdure never ending, 
Now 'mid deserts brown and bare, 

Is the mighty I'iver wending, 

Who can tell us whence or where ? 

Ever changing is the current 

Of the vast, mysterious stream : 
Here it swells into a torrent. 

There 'tis like an infant's dream. 



We, who down the stream are sailing, 
Guide our craft in different ways ; 

Some with mournful noise of wailing, 
Some with songs of hope and praise. 

Down we float 'mid joy and sorrow. 
Hatred cold and friendship fond. 

Craving sunshine for the morrow 
In the depths which lie beyond. 



84 BRIDGEWATER 

Why keep crying, " Whither ? whither ? 

Watchman, tell us of the night " ? 
Surely He who brought us hither 

Will direct our course aright. 

As the river, circling ever. 
Once again will come in sight 

Of its fountain, witnessed never 
Since it first embraced the light ; — 

So upon this golden morning. 
On the bosom of the waves. 

For a timely word of Avarning, 
Come we to our fathers' graves. 

Looking o'er the fields and meadows 
Which unnoticed lie between. 

Indistinct as evening shadows. 
Figures of the past are seen. 

As the sun is ever lifting 
Ocean's vapors to the sky. 

So from out the past come drifting 
Memories of the days gone by. 

Fathers, mothers, rise before us, 
Quick to hear affection's call ; 

While the arch which closes o'er us 
Shields the homesteads of us all. 

Down we float, and leave to others 
Words of hate and angry scorn ; 

While we turn, a band of brothers, 
Back to the ancestral morn. 

Down we float, and soon beliind us 
Leave we present scenes and men. 

Wondering where this day will find us, 
Rolled by centuries round again. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 85 

Down we floaL believing, knowing, 

That no evil can befall, 
Wlien, as from a sun, is flowing 

Love unbounded for us all. 

Never even can disaster 

Cast its shadow o'er a di-eam, 
If we let the perfect Master 

Guide our passage down the stream. 



There have been days, as well we know, 
Before this present summer morn ; 
And, trusting those who tell us so, 
Time was ere we ourselves were born. 

And, looking down the rugged hill 
Up which the past has borne the cross. 
The landscape sleeps, sei-ene and still, 
Though overgrown with weeds and moss. 

Full many an anxious heai't has beat 
With love for Jack or love for JiU ; 
Full many a pair of pretty feet 
Has danced or loitered up the hill. 

But what of that ? In bygone things 
We seldom claim to have a share ; 
Content with what the present brings. 
If only what it brings be fair. 

So scenes will often pass from mind 
Wliich never should have been forgot ; 
Thus, not so long ago, we find 
The town of Bridgewater was not. 

The town of Bridgewater was not : 
How comes it that the town has been ? 
'Twas purchased in a single lot 
Of famous old Ousamequin. 



86 BRIDGEWATER 

Then fifty-four stout men arose 
To take the land for good or worse, 
Wliose honest names will do for prose, 
But never could be meant for verse. 

How high must be the poet's claims 
Who meets no mental scrapes and rubs 
In putting into verse the names, — 
Experience Mitchell, William Tubbs ! 

For though experience teaches well, 
And tubs on their own bottoms stand, 
Theirs hardly is the magic spell 
By which a verse is made to hand. 

Experience, if he married well. 
To lively Sorrow linked his life ; 
Nor would it be so strange to tell 
If hoops encircled Tubbs's wife. 

Expei"ience, if a child he had, 
To call her Wisdom scarce could fail ; 
While Tubbs need not have felt so bad 
If his turned out a little pale. 

Forgive, if aught which I have said. 
Experience, seems to mar thy fame : 
A blessing, Tubbs, upon thy head ; 
I jested only with thy name. 

A blessing on the brave old men 
From whom we claim a common birth ; 
Whom earth will not behold again. 
Whose virtues cannot pass from earth. 

All honor to their hoary hair ! 
They are not dead, — they gently sleep : 
For us were all their grief and care ; 
They sowed the field which we shall reap. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 87 

Oh ! chide not him who loves to roam 
Among the relics of the past ; 
Who calls one little spot his home, 
And clings around it to the last. 

And though his lineage he may track 
With something of an honest pride, 
Who calls it crime to wander back 
Among the noble who have died ? 

Not how our fathers passed their days 
The present bard designs to sing ; 
Nor yet the wreath of feeble praise 
Around their honored brows to fling : — 

But from the volume of their woes 
One simple chapter will he take, 
Wherein old Winter sheds his snows ; 
But they live on for Freedom's sake. 

Next come the joys which all must feel 
When past are Winter's dreary hours ; 
When life from death begins to steal, 
And rosy Spring brings back the flowers. 



How fearful the tempests which howl through the winters, 

Pursuing the mariner over the sea ; 
Which dash the stout heart of the oak into splinters, 

And show us how terrible Nature can be ! 

We quietly sit by the family -fire. 

And heed not the tempest which howls at the door. 
But pile up the logs ever higher and higher, 

Defying old Winter a thousand times o'er. 

" Come in if thou canst, and give over thy moaning, 
Wlio turnest to ice what thou breathest upon. 

And tell us how many this moment are gi'oaning 

O'er mischief which thou in thy madness hast done; — 



88 BRIDGEWATER 

" How many are wrapping their garments around them, 
Resigning themselves to thy rage in despair ; 

How many lie dead where by chance thou hast found them, 
"Who had not a moment to murmur a prayer. 

" Good luck betide those who are hopefully braving, 
Thou cruel old monster, the strength of thine ire, — 

The heart-broken wretches who fain would be saving 
Their one sjjark of life by their one spark of fire ! " 

Oh, pity ! Why need we an instant to borrow 

A counterfeit sadness fi'om poem or tale, 
When more than our hearts can imagine of sorrow 

Goes moaning about on the wings of the gale ? 

We gather to-day beneath Summer's green arches. 
And Winter's dominion appears like a dream ; 

But steadily onward old Time ever marches, 

And soon the bright Summer a vision will seem. 

We look o'er a country whei-e Plenty is reigning, 
And pouring the blessings of Peace from her horn. 

And little imagine the good we are gaining 

From those who had died ere our fathers were born. 

They came o'er the sea on a journey of peril ; 

Like mists of the morning were scattered their foes ; 
And fat grew the land which before had been sterile, 

And straightway the wilderness bloomed like the rose. 

With logs for their dwellings, and bears for their neighbors, 
And men in the forest more fearful than bears. 

What heart could prefigure the end of their labors. 
Or half of the glory and praise which are theirs ? 

And, oh ! when the tempests of winter were howling. 
And claiming admittance through cranny and crack ; 

When every thing deadly around them was prowling, 
And heaven's blue arches were curtained with black ; — 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 89 

When out of the woods came the yell of the foeman, 
The heart-broken accent of maddened despair, 

And swiftly the shaft of the bloody-red bowman 

Flew, piercing the snow-ilakes which stilled the air, — 

How strangely contrasted the sounds which wei'e blending — 
The din of the storm, and the foeman's wild cries — 

With prayers which were evermore gently ascending 
To Him who shall wipe away tears from all eyes ! 

And fondly sped backward their thoughts o'er the waters, 
To homes which were happy, and might be their OAvn, — 

Where England keeps watch o'er her sons and her daughters, 
But treats not so kindly the birds which have fiown. 

A truce to old Winter : though dreadful the cui'ses 
Which follow, like birds of the night, in his train. 

We love him almost for the child which he nui'ses, — 
Our beautiful Spring, with her sunlight and rain. 

AVho closes the door when the blithe little maiden 
Comes tripping along with her basket of flowers ? 

Who loves not the treasures with which she is laden, 

Whose smile is the sunshine, whose tears are the showers ? 

The hearts of our fathers she filled with her gladness 
When o'er them her sweet-laden breezes she poured, 

In place of the clouds with their shadows of sadness. 
Which seemed like the menacing wrath of the Lord. 

No more need the men their alarms to dissemble. 

The women to cover their faces for fright ; 
No more need the children to listen and tremble. 

Like lambs at the tread of the wolf, over night. 

The clouds were not all from the firmament driven. 
When Winter had taken his leave of the stage ; 

But Spring set her rainbow of hope in the heaven, — 
The spirit of childhood for that of old age. 

12 



90 BRIDGEWATER 

What load is so great that it cannot be Hghtened, 
What heart is so old that it will not grow young, 

What future so dai'k that it will not be brightened, 

If brooks have but murmured, and birds have but sung ? 

When sunny-faced Spring, through a million of voices, 
Proclaims to the earth that her advent is neai*. 

The kindly old mother as truly rejoices 

As when the first sunlight awoke the first year. 

From Winter's deep slumbers she joyfully rises. 
And flings a green mantle o'er valleys and hills ; 

Then decks herself out in the gems which she prizes, — 
A necklace of lakes, and a girdle of rills. 



This day, two centuries ago, 
Beneath this sky, our fathers came, 
Resolved to plant, for weal or woe. 
The scions of an honest name. 

To-day, two centuries have fled ; 
And we, their children, come to see 
If what they planted here is dead. 
Or fruit is hanging from the tree. 

As o'er recorded time we look. 
And then into the present glare. 
We wonder, as we close the book, 
Wliich picture we must judge more fair. 

Is that which hangs upon the bough 
The glory of the parent stem ? 
Or were they wiser then than now ? 
And borrow we our light from them ? 

No matter. This at least we know, 
That, whether bright or dim our fires, 
They must with wondrous lustre glow 
To match the splendor of our sires. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 91 

Our lots have fallen in different times : 
They lived in winter, cold and drear ; 
But we are listening to the chimes 
With which the spring awakes the year. 

Their path was strewn with stony cares, 
But ours is full of hopeful flowers ; 
The labor and the pain were theirs, 
While all the fruitful joy is ours. 

How wondrous is the lapse of time, 
The heart of man no more conceives 
Than children of a southern clime 
Can think of plants without their leaves. 

Recall the days when wheels were rare, 
And stages never passed the town ; 
When, pillion-back, a loving pair 
Kode gravely jogging up and down. 

What need of stage or omnibus, 
Without a road where wheels could range ? 
Strange passing that would be for us ; 
In truth, it would be passing strange. 

How wide their eyes would open now, 
If they could see what we have done ; 
Could see the fruit upon the bough, 
Which ripens in the morning sun ! 

How pleasant it would be to show 
Our gallery of modern arts, 
Where all the powers which move below 
Are taught to play respective parts ! 

How full their souls would be of wonder, 
And how our wiser selves would laugh, 
K they beheld that son of thunder. 
Which we have called the telegraph ! 



92 BRIDGEWATER 



" My ancient friend," their sons might say, 
" Observe our modes of locomotion : 
Instead of fifty miles a day, 
A Aveek will nearly ci'oss the ocean." 

" I know, my son," the sage replies, 
" The age of pillions long is past ; 
But now the danger in my eyes 
Is lest you get a bit too fast." 

" Again, good sires, be pleased to see 
Another jewel in our crown : 
The sun takes portraits, so that we 
To future time can hand them down." 

" My sons," 'tis answered witli a frown, • 
" If you forget the shaving-cup. 
Though you may hand your faces down. 
We'll thank you not to hand them up." 

What man who sees the ages rise, 
And notes the changes which they bring. 
Can marvel that our partial eyes 
Should judge the present season spring? 

From out the darkness of the past 
So many wonders have been born, 
That we appear to sit at last 
Upon the threshold of the morn. 

A wondrous stern and sturdy stock 
Was that from which we claim descent : 
Their faith was like the steadfast rock ; 
Their lives, a deathless monument. 

No doubtful hate within them burning 
Impelled them to a doubtful field ; 
But hearts resolved upon returning. 
Like Spartan, with or on the shield. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 93 

Can wrong usurp the place of right? 
And can the changeless laws be changed ? 
Or must the darkness and the light, 
Divided once, be kept estranged ? 

In truth, what we esteem a sin 

Was virtue in the days of old ; 

And what they spurned as glittering tin. 

We treasure as the solid gold. 

We like, the most of us, to dance, 

Or spend an evening at a play ; 

While they would rather take their chance 

At drinking poison any day. 

They thought it was a gracious deed 
To bring a Quaker to his end ; 
While only in extremest need 
We kill a foe, much less a friend. 

And how their pious eyes would glow 
When witches at the stake were burned ! 
But we caress our witches so, 
That all the tables now are turned. 

Although a witch may be a thing 
Which should be rapped upon the head, 
'Tis time to stop our cudgelling. 
If she will rap us back when dead. 

With guilt which they trod in the dust. 
Their sons, we hope, are gently dealing : 
'Tis one thing to be strictly just, 
Another to have kindly feeling. 

But while forgiveness we bestow 
Upon the sinner, not the sin, 
We must not fail to strike the blow 
When fear alone would hold us in. 



94 BRIDGEWATER 

A little more of self-respect, 
"While travelling in the path of right, 
Would make our journey more direct, 
And throw more day upon our night. 

Though age may often find it hai*d 
To gather all its dues from youth, 
'Tis better than that blind regard 
Should swallow up the Uving truth. 

The honest lives our fathers led. 
Blame ye who can defend your own : 
" The sinless man," it has been said, 
'^ Shall be the first to cast a stone." 

Their virtues we must all applaud, 
Who have a care for real worth : 
If such were scattered more abroad, 
'Twould be the better for the earth. 

How oft from yonder spire have rung 
The echoes of the sabbath-bell ! — 
A summons sweet to old and young 
To draw the truth from truth's own well. 

The word of God, from lips inspired, 
They heard, and, hearing, they adored ; 
And, though the preacher they admired, 
They came to worship but the Lord. 

Within the mists of bygone days. 
Which wrap the past as in a cloud. 
Three reverend men are giving praise. 
And asking blessings on the crowd. 

A blessing in the name of truth 
Upon the shepherds of the sheep, 
Who labored from the dawn of youth, 
Till evening brought the hour of sleep ! 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 95 

More faithful servants who can find 
Than these to work the work of God ? 
What men have left more fruit behind 
To mark the path in which they trod ? 

And thou, whose honored name is mine 
To tarnish or to honor still, 
For whom no human hand can twine 
A wreath which will become thee ill, — 

Be happy, in the name of those 
Whom thou has taught the ways of right, 
In realms where duty pleasure grows. 
And where the blind receive their sig-ht. 



Now, the benediction uttered, 
DraAvs our service to its close : 

Soon must parting words be muttei-ed, 
Soon must evening bring repose. 

Then our holiday is over, 
And we travel, every one, — 

Father, mother, sister, lover, — 
Onward to the setting sun. 

Loving, striving, wishing, hoping. 
Fond and anxious hearts we bear ; 

Sadly now through darkness groping, 
Bending now to breathe a prayer. 

Soon the lover and the maiden 
Are the husband and the wife. 

And, with common burdens laden, 
Sail adown the stream of life ; — 

Soon the father and the mother 
Teach the child the way of truth ; 

Soon the sister and the brother 
Ripen into blushing youth. 



96 BRIDGEWATER 

Then comes age, as sweet and simple 
As the infant newly born, — 

Placid lake without a dimple, 
Waiting for the coming morn. 

Waiting ! Then the morn is coming. 
Reddening all the eastern sky : 

Now is heard a distant humming 
From the day which will not die. 

Waiting ! All of us are waiting ; 

And the youngest child who hears, 
Even now his bark is freighting 

With its load of hopes and fears. 

When the next assembly gathers 
On the soil which now we tread, 

We shall be the honored fathers, 
Nunabered with the living dead. 

In the mail of self-denial 

We must arm us for the fray. 

Ere the hands upon the dial 
Mark the limits of the day. 

Honest lives, not empty phrases. 
Are the stuff to make a name 

Worthy of our children's praises, 
Worthy of our lathers' fame. 

Still before us lies the river, 
With its tides of good and ill : 

There we may lie mute, and shiver. 
Or be sailing where we will. 

Strike when iron hoofs are tramping 
O'er the bodies of the just ! 

Strike when guilty Power is stamping 
Wounded Freedom in the dust ! 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 97 

Strike when honest men are lying 

By the hands of cowards slain ! 
Strike when Abel's blood is crying 

Vengeance on the guilty Cain ! 

Love the slayer and the slaughtered ! 

And, as love grows strong with years, 
May their future graves be watered 

With our kind, forgiving teai's ! 



The following Hymn, written by Eev. Daniel 
Huntington, of New London, was sung by the as- 
sembly, to the tune of " Old Hundred : " — 



God of our fathers ! hear the song 
Their grateful sons united raise, 
Wliile round their hallowed graves we throng- 
To think and speak of other days, — 

Those days of toil and peril, when, 
In faith and love that conquered fear, 
They bought the fields of savage men, 
And reared their homes and altars here. 

To thee their daily vows were paid ; 
To thee their hearts and lives were given ; 
And, by thy guidance and thine aid. 
They trod their pilgrim-path to heaven. 

Rich is the heritage we claim, 
"Whom thou hast made their favored heirs, — 
Their cherished faith, their honest fame, 
Their love, their counsels, and their prayers. 
13 



98 BRIDGEWATER 

They left us freedom, honor, truth : 
Oh, may these rich bequests descend 
From sire to son, from age to youth. 
And bless our land till time shall end ! 

So, as successive centuries roll. 
When we shall long have passed away. 
Here may our sons, with heart and soul, 
Still hail Bridgewater's natal day. 

A Benediction was pronounced by Rev. Baalis 
Sanford, of East Bridgewater. 



A recess of twenty minutes was taken, when a 
procession was formed, of persons holding tickets for 
the dinner, in the same order as the procession of the 
morning, and marched to the pavilion erected on 
the easterly side of the main street, between the 
houses of William Copeland and Jonas Leonard, 
where J. B. Smith, of Boston, had provided one of 
his excellent dinners for a thousand persons. A 
blessing was invoked by the venerable Dr. Ken- 
dall, of Plymouth. After those who sat at the 
tables had partaken of the bountiful refreshments 
which had been laid before them, thanks were re- 
turned by Rev. Dr. Edson, of Lowell. 



Hon. John A. Shaw, the President of the day, 
then delivered the following Address : — 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 99 



Felloav-Citizens and Descendants of the good old 
ToAVN of Bridgeavater, — 

The pleasant duty has been assigned me of bidding 
you Avelcome on this festal occasion. I gladly bid you a 
hearty Avelcome to this festive board, to the intellectual 
repast, and to all the halloAved associations of this auspicious 
day. It is a great, a joyous day, Avhich brings together so 
many of us at the old family homestead, in this loveliest 
month of all the year, Avhen Nature is putting on her beau- 
tiful garments, and decking herself in flowers. 

Ladies, you are especially welcome ; for it Avould be dark 
around our hearth-stone Asathout the light of Avoman's smile. 
We hail your presence at this board as the companion and 
equal of man. Nothing truly good or great ever has been 
or can be effected Avithout the aid of Avoman. She Avas the 
helpmate of our fathers : she cheered them in their toils and 
privations at the same time that she shared them. 

Though many of us are noAV in each other's presence for 
the first time, Ave are not strangers to each other, but 
brothers and sisters of one and the same household. Yes, 
ladies and gentlemen, a common bond unites us as the mem- 
bers of one great family ; for Ave all cherish in common a 
grateful remembrance of our pious ancestors, Avhose presence 
hallowed these regions two hundred years ago. We embalm 
alike in our hearts the recollection of their toils, their pri- 
vations, and their dangers ; of their stern integrity, and 
strict purity of life. We reverence alike their unfaltering- 
trust in God ; their indomitable perseverance ; and their 
determined purpose to enjoy liberty of conscience, and trans- 
mit the same to posterity. While cherishing these precious 
reminiscences of our pious forefathers, Ave are not strangers 
to each other, but brethren of one heart and of one spirit. 

In Avelcoming you, ladies and gentlemen, to a participa- 
tion in this day's services, Ave cannot point you to any 
localities in our neighborhood Avhich are renowned in the 



100 BRIDGEWATER 

world's history. No great battle-fields, on which the fate of 
nations has been decided, are near us. We can direct your 
admiring gaze to no Bunker Hill, no Heights of Dorchester. 
But look around, and you will see the fields on which have 
been achieved the no less glorious triumphs of peace, — 
fields which, generations ago, were cleared of their primeval 
forest growth and cultivated by the hands of men of whom 
the Old World was not worthy ; men of whom it was said, 
that " God sifted a whole nation to obtain precious seed for 
sowing this Western World." To such men, and their im- 
mediate successors, we can look back as our progenitors ; 
and, when our eyes rest on these scenes of their labors, it is 
a grateful reflection that these territories were fairly pur- 
chased of their aboriginal possessors, and freely granted by 
them to our fiithers. Not far from the place where we are 
now assembled, you can read the humble memorials of these 
men, where rest their mortal remains : — 



" Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, 
The place of fame and elegy supply ; 
And many a holy text around she strews, 
That teach the rustic moralist to die." 



In setting apart this day for the commemoration of those 
good men who first settled the ancient town, we express our 
gratitude to our Father in heaven for having given us an 
ancestry to whom we can ever look back with reverence. 
The " Memoir of Plymouth Colony," * when speaking of 
Bridgewater as it was in 1692, remarks, that "the founda- 
tion was laid for a population, which subsequently has been 
distinguished for correct moral habits, enterprise, industry, 
and learning." From another source f we have the following 
record, made a hundred and thirty-nine years ago, in these 
words : " The New-English Bridgewater has been a town 
favored of God. It was planted a noble vine. The first 

* Francis Baylies. t Increase and Cotton Mather. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 101 

planters of it were a set of people who made religion their 
main interest, and it became their glory." 

Although the names of our ancestors are not emblazoned 
on the rolls of fame, they gave the first direction and im- 
pulse to a community, which, from their days to the present 
time, has been steadily moving onward with the onward 
march of this noble Commonwealth, of this mighty nation. 
Though they were not themselves of those whom the world 
calls great, the example of their virtues, and the spirit they 
bequeathed to their posterity, have raised up not a few 
among their descendants, whose names will live on the page 
of history, and whose services will be felt and appreciated, 
long after their frail bodies shall have mouldered into dust. 
In confirmation of this, I will remind you of Fisher Ames, 
the enlightened and pure-hearted statesman, whose eloquent 
tongue uttered the accents of an angel with an angel's power. 

Two gentlemen* are now living, descendants of Bridge- 
water, who have been the chief magistrates of this Common- 
wealth ; one of whom, as you know, has done us the honor 
of being our orator to-day, and to whose eloquent words we 
have listened with deepest interest. Also there are now 
present at this board our venerable Chief Justice, and another 
venerable man, the late Chief Justice of the State of Maine, 
likewise descendants f of the ancient town. Of the five 
ex-members of Congress now residing within our borders, 
four of whom honor us with their presence to-day, two were 
born in the old town, one of whom has also recently been 
our Lieutenant-Governor. + Thi^e members of the present 
Congress are among her descendants. § And one of the 
beautiful odes which have moved our hearts to-day reminds 
us that there are those || among her sons who can — 

" Wake to ecstasy the living lyre." 



* Marcus Morton and Emory Washburn. 

t Lemuel Shaw and Ezekiel Whitman. 

i John Reed. ^ The Washbums. \\ W. C. Bryant. 



102 BRIDGEWATEK 

Such was the prosperity of the ancient Bridgewater tinder 
the wise counsels of its early settlers, that it contained, one 
hundred years ago, a population of thirty-seven hundred ; 
a greater number of inhabitants to the square mile, at that 
early day, than two-thirds of the States of this Union have at 
the present time, old Virginia being one of them. Our 
population is now approaching fourfold what it then w^as ; 
for which increase we are principally indebted to North 
Bridgewater, which has at the present time as numerous a 
population as the whole of the old town had when it was 
divided in 1821. The population is now towards two hun- 
dred to the square mile ; considerably greater than the 
average of our populous Commonwealth, the most com- 
pactly peopled State in the Union. Indeed, but few 
countries of Europe have as many inhabitants to the square 
mile as the territory about us ; and this with no extraordinary 
natural advantages, but by only heeding the lessons of those 
who have gone before us, — men who bequeathed in their 
example the virtues of industry, frugality, and perseverance, 
the fear of God, and respect for the rights of man. 

It is not in a boastful spirit that we speak of the pros- 
perity which this day surrounds us, but, we trust, in the 
spirit of gratitude to that beneficent Being, from whose free 
bounty comes every thing which gladdens our sojourn upon 
earth, — every thing that gives us the hope of immortality- 
beyond it. We should be the unworthy descendants of 
those good men of whom this day vividly reminds us, could 
we assemble in the midsfr of all that blesses life, and not 
be mindful of those religious hopes and aspirations which 
brought our Pilgrim Fathers across the broad Atlantic ; 
which encouraged and cheered them on to encounter the 
perils and hardships of an unknown shore, a boundless 
wilderness, and a race of savage men, and without which 
we should be but little better than insects of a day. 

Descendants of the ancient Bridgewater, and you who 
now inhabit her territory, we know from authentic records 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 103 

what the condition of the region round about was two 
hundred years ago. "We also know that this district of 
country was prosperous and comparatively wealthy and f)opu- 
lous one hundred years ago. Our eyes see and our hearts feel 
what it is to-day. But who can lift the veil which covers 
the future from our view ? Who can look down the long 
vista to 1956, and describe to us the Bridgewaters of that 
day ? Who can inform us respecting the men and women 
who will assemble on the 3d of June in that year to 
do honor to the memory of their ancestors ? 

Though the reality is wisely concealed from all but Him 
who sees the end from the beginning, we cannot doubt that 
a glorious destiny is in reserve for those who are to follow 
us. The history of the world declares the onward and 
upward course of man, notwithstanding he sometimes re- 
lapses. Auspicious omens cheer us on, though clouds 
sometimes darken the horizon. And, though wrong and 
outrage may triumph for a season, there is a Power which 
causes even "the wrath of man to praise him." Though 
we are not prophets, we are taught by those who were, that 
the human race was placed on earth for a far nobler state 
of society than the world has ever seen ; that the religion of 
the Saviour will yet enlighten and elevate all nations. We 
know that his prayer must yet be answered, and God's 
*'will be done on earth as it is in heaven." 

What revolutions, what convulsions, what reverses, may 
precede the promised age, or when its full-orbed splendor 
shall illuminate the world, it is not ours to know. It is 
enough for us to be assured, that the Sun of Righteousness 
will, at some future day, shed his beams on every land, and 
that the love of God and man will be the controlling spirit of 
our race. And just so far as this spirit becomes the rule 
of action, just so far, and no farther, will earth become a 
paradise. For what is man without morals ? What are 
morals without religious principle ? 

Let our countrymen but give heed to the declaration of 



104 BRIDGEWATER 

our political father, that "the preservation of our Union 
is of infinite moment both to our collective and individual 
happiness, and that we ought to frown indignantly upon 
every attempt to alienate one portion of our country from 
the rest ; " let them believe with him, that " religion and 
morality are indispensable supports of all the dispositions 
and habits which lead to political prosperity ; " let such in- 
structions as these words of him, who was " first in the hearts 
of his countrymen," but guide the conduct of the people of 
these United States, — and the century on which we are 
entering to-day will witness a progress no less wonderful 
than the last, as regards both our nation, our State, and our 
neighborhood. 

But I must forbear, and keep you back no longer from the 
intellectual repast which the eloquent men whom I see 
around me are prepared to set before you. 

I have only to say again. Welcome, thrice welcome, ladies 
and gentlemen, to the hallowed associations and all the enjoy- 
ments of this Second Centennial Day of Bridgewater. 



Benjamin W. Harris, Esq., the Toastmaster, then 
announced the regular sentiments as follows : — 

1. " The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of Bridgeivater — The 
children of the ancient town are assembled from the north and the sonth, the east 
and the west, to do honor to their parent; and may their days be long in the land, 
according to the promise ! " 

To this sentiment, Hon. Ezekiel Whitman, of East 
Bridgewater, made the following remarks : — 

Mr. President, — I presume I am called upon, on the 
present occasion, on account of my being an octogenarian, 
and, therefore, as being able to carry my recollection back to 
a remote period. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 105 

I spent my youthful days, principally, till twenty-three 
years of age, in the good old town of Bridgewater ; after- 
wards I resided in Maine till within a few years past ; and I 
can say with the celebrated Goldsmith, that — 

" In all my wanderings through this world of care, 
111 all my griefs, — and God has given my share, — 
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, 
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; 
To husband out life's taper to the close, 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose. 
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue. 
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past. 
Here to return, and die at home at last." 

And, now, here I am, free to breathe my native air on my 
own ground. 

My distinct recollections reach no further back than the 
close of the revolutionary war. I well remember seeing 
the disbanded soldiers returning, after the close of it ; and 
I well remember quite a number of aged and venerable men 
in my neighborhood at that time, who, without doubt, 
retained the manners, customs, and modes of thinking, of 
a remote ancestry. There were, besides, four clergymen — 
one in each of the four parishes — in the ancient town, 
whose ministry, of sixty years' duration each, was drawing 
to a close. 

Till the close of the revolutionary war, and for some 
years thereafter, it is not probable that there had been much 
change in the condition of our forefathers. They were 
a staid and conservative race. Novelties were looked upon 
by them with distrust. They were plain and homespun 
in every thing. Ostentation was far from being a charac- 
teristic among them. Each felt safe in treading in the steps 
of his father before him. 

The dwellings of those days were without paint, inside and 
out ; and the churches were in a similar predicament. The 
furniture of their dwellings was of the simplest kind, though 

14 



106 BRIDGEWATER 

often convenient and comfortable : sofas, stuffed-back and 
cushion-seated chairs, and carpets, were unknown to them. 
In their houses you would find — 



" The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor," ■ 



and perhaps 



" The varnished clock that clicked behind the door; 
The hearth, except when winter chilled the daj-, 
With aspin-boughs, and flowers and fennel gay." 

And in some instances, perhaps, — 

" The broken teacups, wisely kept for show, 
Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row." 

And as for music, there was the good old spinning-wheel to 
be heard in every dwelling, which was suggestive of much 
that was delightful. It indicated industry and thrift, and 
gave promise of comfortable clothing ; and, what was much 
better, it was a healthful exercise for the young females : it 
developed and fortified their energies, gave them fresh- 
ness and florid beauty, and fitted them to become desirable 
companions and housewives. Instead of this healthful music, 
we now have the sickening piano, suggestive of nothing but 
effeminacy, luxury, and the want of better employment. 
Our grandmothers were the manufacturers, almost wholly, 
of the cloth used in their families : of course, they were 
accustomed to labor, and were real helpmates. 

Our ancestors, at the conclusion of the great contest con- 
firming our independence as a nation, having exhausted 
much of their means in securing that object, were, in some 
measure, in destitute circumstances. Their circulating me- 
dium was reduced almost to nothing. Their paper-money 
had proved utterly worthless ; and it was with much diffi- 
culty that specie could be procured to pay their taxes. And 
those who were in debt found it almost impossible to meet 
their engagements : economy and frugality, therefore, were, 
in all their operations, quite indispensable. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. lOT 

I have before remarked, that our ancestors were a plain, 
homespun people : they were not rich, and scarcely any 
of them were poor. Their condition was that of medio- 
crity and equality ; so much so, that some of the wags in the 
neighboring towns, who were inclined to be witty, charac- 
terized them by saying, that in Bridgewater there was nei- 
ther a poor man nor a rich one, a wise man nor a fool. 

Our ancestors were, moreover, remarkable for their uni- 
formity and fixedness in matters of religion. During the 
ministration of the four pastors before alluded to, all within 
the limits of each parish attended at the same church. It is 
not known, that, in those days, there was a single dissentient ; 
and the four ministers could freely interchange with each 
other. People in those days had not begun to split hairs 
about matters in regard to which no mortal in this life can 
arrive to any degree of certainty. 

There was in those days, in each of the four parishes, as 
in Goldsmith's favorite village, — 

" The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 
The decent church that topped the neighboring hill." 

There was also, in each parish, the good man, of whom he 
says, — 

" A man he was to all the country dear, 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year: 
Kemote from towns he ran his godly race. 
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place. 
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power, 
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; 
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, — 
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. 
And as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
Allured to bi'ighter worlds, and led the way." 

There was also, in each of the parishes, the place — 

" Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired; 
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound. 
And news much older than their ale went round." 



108 BRIDGEWATER 

It may, however, have been flip, or good old cider, that went 
round, instead of ale, in our ancestors' days. Whoever reads 
Goldsmith's " Deserted Village " will find much that will 
strikingly apply to the condition of our forefathers. 

Our ancestors had another source of enjoyment, in their 
almost perfect freedom from lawless intrusion. Scarcely any 
one, in those days, thought it necessary to fasten his doors, 
and much less his windows, on retiring for the night. Each 
sat under his own vine and his own Jig-tree, and had none to 
molest or make him afraid. 

Thus we see that our ancestors were not without their 
sources of enjoyment. Their almost perfect equality, so con- 
ducive to familiar and unrestrained sociability ; their undis- 
turbed unanimity in matters of religion ; their freedom from 
fear of the disorderly or thievish midnight intruder ; their 
facilities for obtaining the wholesome comforts of life, with- 
out the deteriorating annoyances of luxury, — all seem to 
have conspired to make their lot as happy as is attainable in 
this life. 

Notwithstanding all which, we are naturally prone to feli- 
citate ourselves in contrasting our condition with theirs. We 
find our domiciles and churches everywhere glistening inside 
and out with paint ; our furniture of the most costly kind, 
consisting of mahogany, black walnut, or rosewood, — heavy, 
massive, and almost immovable ; sofas, ottomans, secretaries, 
and rich cabinet-wares, too numerous to be mentioned ; 
with woollen carpets, rugs, brass fire-sets, and splendid vehi- 
cles for transportation. With these our eyes are dazzled, 
and our imaginations are led astray. 

But let us pause, and consider what is really conducive to 
enjoyment. Who dares now to retire for the night, without 
fastening his doors and windows ? How much of equality of 
condition is to be met with, so conducive to good fellowship ? 
How is it with regard to religious fellowship ? Till the close 
of the last century, no clergyman was ever settled in either of 
the four parishes, wit.h one solitary exception, that did not 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 109 

spend his days there. How has it been since ? In the okl 
East Parish, now town of East Bridgewater, since the com- 
mencement of the present century there have been settled no 
less than six ministers, five of whom are now living ; and there 
are now in the same town, formerly the East Parish, three 
other societies, neither of the ministers of which can agree 
on an exchange with either of the others. And in the other 
towns, comprising the other parishes of ancient Bridgewater, 
it is understood that there is, and has been, at least an approxi- 
mation to the same state of things. Let these considerations 
cause us to pause, and consider how much, if at all, our con- 
dition, as conducive to true enjoyment, is to be preferred, on 
the whole, to that of our ancestors. 

There is, however, one particular in which we may fairly 
rejoice in a real improvement upon what they enjoyed. 
Wheeled carriages, for the transportation of persons, they 
can scarcely be said to have had any. A few, and they were 
very few, elderly people had rickety old chaises to convey 
them to meeting. Wagons for the purpose are of recent 
invention. The horse, saddle, and pillion afforded almost 
the only means, except when there was sleighing, for the 
transportation of persons ; and such was the case nearly to 
the close of the last century. 

One more quotation from Goldsmith, and this garrulity of 
an old man shall be brought to a close, at least for the pre- 
sent : — 

" Ttus fares the land, by luxury betrayed, 
111 nature's simplest charms at first arrayed; 
But, verging to decline, its splendors rise, 
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise." 

May this vaticination never be verified in either of the 
Bridgewaters, though their splendors should continue to rise, 
their vistas strike, their palaces surprise. 



2. " The Cummonwealth of MassackuseUs. — May her glory shine as bright in the 
preservation of liberty, indejJtmlence, and union, as in the struggles for their acquisi- 
tion! " 



110 BRIDGEWATER 

Response by the Band. 



3. " The Chief Justice of Massachusetts. — He reads upon the tablets of our quiet 
churchyard the memorials of his ancestors : on the tablets of our hearts he may read 
our welcome to the descendant." 



Hon. Lemuel Shaw, of Boston, responded sub- 
stantially as follows : — 

Mr. President, — For the very kind and significant terms 
in which you and the very large and respectable assembly 
here present have noticed myself, as a descendant of a 
respectable ancestry, I pray you to accept the expression of 
my heartfelt and sincere thanks. My gratitude for this kind 
and respectful notice is not the less sincere and personal, 
when I consider, as I cannot fail to do, that that marked 
expression of affectionate regard is, to a certain extent, in- 
fluenced by the honorable and responsible office which I 
hold in the judiciary of the Commonwealth. 

So far as my observation and experience have gone, — and 
they have been pretty extensive, — I think I may say with 
truth, that, if there be any one sentiment general, strong, 
and predominant, amongst the thoughtful and considerate 
people of Massachusetts, it is an earnest desire to establish 
and maintain, at all times and under all circumstances, an 
able, faithful, and impartial administration of justice. Cor- 
responding with this highly salutary principle, I have never 
failed to observe a general disposition among the people to 
cherish and express a feeling of affectionate and respectful 
regard to all those who have held high judicial offices, and 
who have performed the duties of such offices with a reason- 
able degree of capacity and fidelity. 

We are reminded, sir, by the historical reminiscences so 
vividly brought to our notice to-day, what indeed we well 
knew before, that Bridgewater was founded, and commenced 
her career of advancement and improvement, under the 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. Ill 

government of the old colony of Plymouth, which became 
annexed to Massachusetts by the Province Charter of 1692. 
But although Massachusetts was then comparatively a large 
community, and the colony of Plymouth a small one, I 
believe I may say, with truth, that we were not received as a 
dependency or subordinate community, but were admitted at 
once to the free participation and enjoyment of all the benefits 
of the enlarged common government. And I hesitate not to 
say, that, before and since this union, the inhabitants of the 
old colony — by military services in defence of the country, 
by public services in church and state — have done their fair 
share in advancing the common good and enhancing the 
common reputation ; and I rejoice in adding my belief, that 
they have received their full share of all the honors and dis- 
tinctions which it has been in the power of the common 
parent to bestow. Here, sir, in a sort of family meeting, 
where nothing is intended to go beyond our own circle, I 
hope it may not be regarded unwarrantable vanity in alluding 
to a circumstance calculated to do honor to the land of our 
birth. May I therefore be pardoned in mentioning, that, 
soon after I was appointed to the judicial office which I now 
hold, there was a centennial celebration at Worcester to com- 
memorate the establishment of courts in that county, at which 
the judges of the Supreme Judicial Court, then in session 
there, attended to do honor to the occasion ? Some one there 
called attention to the fact, — and so it was, — that, of the 
four judges of which the Supreme Judicial Court was then 
composed, three were natives of the old colony. 

Mr. President, we are here this day — and, for myself, I 
rejoice in the happy opportunity to recognize and renew, the 
recollections and associations which bind us together — as 
the descendants of a common ancestry, and to congratulate 
each other upon the striking manifestations of success, pros- 
perity, and social improvement, which surround and pervade 
the place of our common origin. Here, from one small set- 
tlement, we behold the establishment of four large, thriving. 



112 BRIDGEWATER 

and well-ordered communities, each with its various churches, 
academies, and schools ; its numerous farms and commodious 
dwellings ; its manufactories, and places of trade ; and each 
numbering its inhabitants by thousands, enjoying all the 
advantages which religious and civil institutions cannot fail 
to bestow. And all this has occurred upon a scene and over 
a territory, — as we have been reminded by the interesting 
historical researches through which the orator has to-day 
vividly carried us, — a territory " inhabited," shall I say ? — 
no, scarcely more than wandered over, — by a handful of 
savages, little raised above the rank of barbarism. 

And within what time has this vast and beneficial change 
taken place ? In certain points of view, two hundred years 
may appear to be a long period of time ; to each man's per- 
sonal experience, looking at the events of his own life only, 
it may seem so : but, in marking the infancy, growth, and 
maturity of tribes, states, and nations, it is, in truth, a com- 
paratively short period. Not only Bridgewater and the old 
colony, but this vast confederacy of the North-American 
States, have risen to their present greatness in the short 
space of two hundred years. May I, in this connection, be 
permitted to allude to a circumstance, somewhat curious in 
itself, which may aid the imagination in conceiving of, and 
realizing the comparative shortness of, this time ? We all 
know, from well-authenticated tradition, that Peregrine White 
was the first child born in the Plymouth colony ; that his 
birth, therefore, was at about 1620 ; and that he lived to be 
about eighty-five years old, thus carrying him to about 1705. 
Mr. Cobb, the centenarian of Kingston, died in 1803, at 
the age of a hundred and seven. Perhaps some who hear 
me may recollect him. I myself visited him at the com- 
mencement of the pi-esent century. He stated that he recol- 
lected Peregrine White, and had seen him, and had heard 
him talk. And this might even be ; for he must have been 
eight or ten years old when Peregrine White died. Para- 
doxical as it may seem, Mr. Cobb lived through part of three 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 113 

centuries, — the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth. 
Born in 1696, and dying in 1803, he lived four years in the 
seventeenth, during the whole of the eighteenth, and three 
years in the nineteenth century. Thus three lives, one, at 
least, still subsisting, — and probably many others, some of 
whom now hear me, — cover the whole period from the arri- 
val of the " Mayflower " to the present time. 

What, then, we are led to inquire, with earnest and affec- 
tionate interest, led to this change from a wilderness to a 
garden, from barbarism to high civilization ? These causes, 
these results, were probably not peculiar to the founders of 
the old colony ; but then they were strikingly displayed and 
illustrated. 

In the first place, the founders were actuated and governed, 
in all their thoughts and all their movements, by high reli- 
gious and moral principle. They were not adventurers, who 
had left their country for a time to mend their fortunes, and 
then return to pass the residue of their lives in their native 
land : they came to seek an abiding-place, to establish a home 
for themselves and their descendants, which should satisfy 
their cherished ideas of a pure, religious commonwealth. 
They came with little property ; but the means on which they 
relied, — and on which, as the event proved, they might rely 
with success, — next to an undoubting faith in the providence 
of God, were earnest minds and willing hands. 

To establish the means of religious instruction and public 
worship, where all might participate and enjoy equal privi- 
leges, was regarded as a duty of the first necessity. But 
their religious character has been too often considered to 
require any extended comment now. Their views may often 
have been narrow or erroneous ; they may have been stiff, 
or even obstinate, in maintaining them : but they were sin- 
cere. It is not on their religious character, however, that I 
would dwell ; but I do wish to ask your attention to their 
high moral principles. In my judgment, they were truly 
and conscientiously governed by a principle of strict integrity, 

lo 



114 BRIDGEWATER 

a pure sense of exact justice, of strict equality of rights in 
the distribution and enjoyment of all civil and social benefits 
and advantages. If a tract of land was granted to a company 
of proprietors, it was to those who had united to form a set- 
tlement, designed for their personal occupation, and divided 
with strict equality, usually by lot ; and if, by any accident or 
mistake, any one had not his full share in real value, it was 
made up to him out of the common stock. No seignories, 
no large tracts, were granted out to individuals for speculation 
and for being leased, or for the purpose of creating distinc- 
tions in rank or social position ; and I have always regarded 
it as one of the vast advantages, and as giving a character in 
the outset to the condition of society, that land was granted 
in small parcels to actual settlers, to be held by actual occu- 
pants, by the freest of all tenures. This affords the highest 
encouragement to permanent improvement ; because every 
occupant feels assured that every permanent improvement will 
enure to his own benefit and that of his children. This it 
is which converts the sterile plain into a fertile field ; this it is 
which marks the distinction in improvement between the 
farms and buildings of a body of free yeomanry, cultivating 
their own lands, and the farms and buildings of a tenantry, 
even on the most fertile soil. 

But next to the religious character of our ancestors, and the 
high-toned, strong sense of morality, of justice and integrity, 
of perfect equality of rights, which marked their conduct in all 
their social and political dealings and relations with each other, 
I consider that the remarkable growth of the communities, in 
advancing from poverty to competency, to wealth, and to all 
the refinements of an advanced civilization, are mainly attri- 
butable to two qualities, — industry and frugality. Labor, 
honest labor, even hard and persevering laboi-, in a laudable 
and honest calling, brought no discouragement, no want of 
respect, no loss of social position. This was a general and 
pervading feeling, and extended to all classes of society. It 
extended to both sexes : mothers and daughters, as well as 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 115 

fathers and sons, were actnatecl alike by a common self-devo- 
tion to useful industry, to advance the common interests of 
the family. If a son was to be supported at college, or a 
daughter to be fitted out with a comfortable marriage pro- 
vision, it was only a stimulus to more assiduous and cheerful 
industry to the whole household. 

But I fear I am detaining you too long. I do wish, how- 
ever, at the hazard of being tedious, in reference to the last 
topic alluded to, to express, for myself and my cotemporaries 
of the present time, a deep feeling of gratitude, veneration, 
and filial affection, for our female - ancestors. Though less 
conspicuous, their duties were not less important and efficient. 
Animated by an abiding sense of religious dependence, and 
sustained by an unshaken faith ; governed by an entire devo- 
tion to duty, and in a self-sacrificing spirit ; without display, 
and without a thought of being applauded or noticed, — they 
proceeded in the performance of their appropriate duties 
with a quiet but persevering energy, which did much to 
mould the character of their sons and daughters to honor and 
virtue, and elevate the tone of society by impressing it with 
something of their own pure and lofty spirit. 

These virtues and characteristics were not rare, excep- 
tional, and occasional, but everywhere abounded as the lead- 
ing characteristics of the wives and mothers of our early 
ancestors, and tended to give to society formed under domes- 
tic auspices a character of high excellence, though still little 
advanced in wealth. Wealth is adventitious : virtue is 
perennial. 

And may we not, with propriety, hold up these virtues of 
the wives and mothers of the olden time, as objects worthy 
of imitation by the women of our own age ? For although 
they are now seldom called on to engage in the same labors ; 
though the useful arts of domestic manufacture have given 
place to literature, the fine arts, and the more delicate occu- 
pations of refined society ; though the music of the piano 
has superseded that of the spinning-wheel, — yet the same 



116 BRIDGEWATER 

piety and faith, the same disinterested, self-sacrificing devo- 
tion to duty, the same quiet energy and earnest maternal 
affection, which constituted the crowning grace of the humble 
dwellings of our ancestors, will still add grace and dignity, 
and shed a purifying influence upon the more sumptuous 
habitations and refined households of modern society. 

Permit me to offer you a sentiment : — 

"May each succeeding Centennial Anniversary witness 
the same deej) interest in the homes of our ancestors, the 
love and veneration of their virtues, and the same fraternal 
harmony, which this day characterize the re-union of the 
Bridge waters." 



4. " The Orator of the Day. — A descendant of one of the original proprietors 
and settlers of Bridgewater : no long line of ancestry can add to his reputation as 
a statesman and a manJ" 

Mr. Washburn, in responding to the above sentiment, 
said that he had already taxed their indulgence too severely 
this day to feel justified in occupying any more of their time, 
which could be so much more profitably employed in listen- 
ing to others. 

But he should be doing injustice to his own feelings, if 
he sufifered the occasion to pass without expressing the 
satisfaction with which he had this day visited a spot so long 
associated in his mind as the early home of his ancestors. 

He had come here well-nigh a stranger ; but as one object 
after another had been pointed out to him, and he had looked 
upon the farms which had been planted by men of his own 
name two centuries ago, he felt as if he had come back to 
what he had a right to claim as his own home.* 



* EUis Ames, Esq., presented the speaker, on this occasion, an original parch- 
ment-deed, executed by John Washburn, 2d, one of the original settlers of the 
town, bearing date, Nov. 1, 1686, and acknowledged before William Bradford, 
Depnty- Govern or. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 117 

And, when he found himself greeted with the warm wel- 
come of hospitality, he forgot that his birthplace was any- 
where than amidst these scenes of comfort and independence 
by which they were surrounded. 

But he claimed the right .of a stranger to speak, as an 
impartial observer, of what he had witnessed this day ; and 
he did not hesitate to say, that nowhere could we look for a 
higher degree of intelligence, good order, and, in every sense 
of the term, respectability, than the multitude who had con- 
vened here had this day evinced. 

Here were assembled, promiscuously, the people of four 
independent communities, numbering by thousands, and yet 
observing all the decorum and self-respect which are looked 
for in the social gatherings of friends and familiar associates, 
the courtesies of social life controlling the scenes of a public 
festive holiday. 

Nor was it too much to say, that they witnessed in this 
the legitimate fruits of the opinions, institutions, and example 
which had been left to this generation by their fathers. 

Well might Bridgewater be proud of such sons and daugh- 
ters ; and well might they come up hither, from their homes 
far and near, to do honor to the memory of its founders, and 
the associations that cluster around this spot. 

He proposed, as a sentiment, — 

" Bridgewater and her Children. — May she ever find a 
devotion as sincere on their part, and they a home as pros- 
perous and a welcome as cordial on hers, as the old home- 
stead has this day presented ! " 



5. " The Attorney- General of the Commonwealth. — Elected to his office forth© 
ability and fidelity with which he lias discharged its duties, and not for party pur- 
poses." 

Hon. John H. Clifford, the Attorney-General of 
the Commonwealth, who had attended the celebration. 



118 BRIDGEWATER 

and would have replied to this toast, was compelled 
to leave the table, by pressing official engagements, 
before it was announced ; leaving with a friend the 
following sentiment, which was read and cordially 
received : — 

" The Ancient Town of Biidgewater. — She has successfully 
solved the most difficult political problem of modern times, 
by showing that there can be a North and a South, an East 
and a West, whose lines of division only serve ' to form a 
more perfect Union.' " 



6. " The Ancient Ministers of the Town. — Keith, Perkins, and Reed, of the West; 
Shaw and Sanger, of the South; the two Angiers, of the East; and Porter, of the 
North, — in their times, the beacon-lights of hiowledfje, the heralds of relirjious and 
civil liherty. Tlieir remains rest peacefully beneath our soil ; the hallowed influence 
of their lives and labors, difi'used throughout the community, will never cZie." 

E,ev. Ralph Sanger, of Dover, replied substantially 
as follows : — 

Mr. President, — You will bear me witness that I knew 
nothing of this sentiment till late last evening. Another 
person (Dr. Gannett, of Boston), an honored descendant of 
Bridgewater, was expected to respond to this sentiment. He 
is not here. I was asked to take his place. My feelings 
prompted me to do it. I could not bear the thought that 
there should be no response to this sentiment ; for although 
delicacy may forbid me to say much of one whose name is 
mentioned in the sentiment just read, yet several of them I 
had seen, and of all of them I had read or heard. 

Mr. President, most of the early ministers of Bridgewater 
attained a great age. The average length of the ministry of 
Keith, Perkins, and Eeed, was the remarkably long period 
of fifty-six years. The average length of the ministry of 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 119 

the first Angler, Shaw, and Porter, was the still longer 
period of more than sixty-one years. This fact reflects 
much credit both upon the ministers and the people. It 
shows that there was mutual attachment, without which a 
ministry can be neither long nor profitable. It furnishes 
a striking contrast to the frequent changes in the ministry at 
the present time. I know that some religious societies have 
had not less than six, and others not less than eight, mini- 
sters since the time of my ordination. A brother clergyman, 
in reference to this state of things, remarked, that soon a 
minister would be considered very old at the age of twenty- 
five, and that people would wish to get a young and smart 
man to take his place. 

Mr. President, I saw, in my early years, the venerable 
Shaw and Porter. They sustained, each of them, a long and 
useful ministry. They were beloved in life, and lamented 
in death. Their children and children's children have risen 
up, and called them blessed. They are honored in many of 
their descendants, and surely, in no small degree, by two 
of them present on this occasion, whose voices we have been 
glad this day to hear, — one presiding with dignity at this 
table ; and the other presiding, with eminent ability, as Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of our honored Common- 
wealth. 

But, Mr. President, the two ministers just mentioned died 
when I was very young. Dr. Keed, on the other hand, sur- 
vived till I had seen more than twoscore years. I knew 
him from my earliest recollection. He was often at my 
father's house. He and my father were like brothers. They 
loved each other ; they respected each other ; they frequent- 
ly visited each other ; they often exchanged on the sabbath ; 
they preached for each other the lecture preparatory to com- 
munion ; so that I often heard him both in public and in pri- 
vate. He was very interesting and instructive in conversa- 
tion. Dr. Reed, as it seems to me, was an original thinker. 
I have known ministers who would probably be regarded 



120 BRIDGEWATEK 

as more learned ; I have known those who perhaps had a 
knowledge of more languages, and were esteemed more criti- 
cal scholars : but I think that I have never known a minister 
who had a more original and discriminating mind. Judge 
Metcalf said of him, that he reminded him of Franklin. 
Like Franklin, he had an original mind ; he uttered short 
and pithy sayings ; thoughts came out of his mind like 
sparks of the electric fluid from the battery ; they came not 
only with light, but with power. Let me add, that his 
character was no less remarkable for its excellence than 
his mind was for its clearness. 



" His doctrine and his life, 
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof 
That he was honest in the sacred cause." 



Mr. President, there is one minister, mentioned in the 
sentiment, of whose life and character and services I may 
not speak at large. But I may be allowed to state one or 
two facts to show that he was a patron of literature, and a 
lover of "religious and civil liberty." Though his salary 
was small, he expended freely of his little income to purchase 
books, and collected, during his lifetime, what was thought 
to be not only the largest, but the most valuable, library in 
that vicinity. He paid nearly a whole year's salary for one 
single work ; viz., " Kees's Cyclopaedia." He contributed 
one-thirtieth part toward the first academy which was erected 
in Bridgewater. He was very fond of literary and scientific, 
as well as theological, studies ; and, whenever occasion re- 
quired, he stood forth the defender of " religious and civil 
liberty." 

Mr. President, I have spoken briefly of the "ancient 
ministers of Bridgewater " whom I have seen, and of whom 
I have personal knowledge. Those whom I have not seen 
— the venerable Keith and Perkins and Angier, of whom 
history and tradition speak — were doubtless "beacon-lights " 
in their day and generation. They performed a good work 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 121 

in their time. Tliey sowed seed, which has sprung up, and 
borne precious fruit, of which we and all coming after us 
will partake. Sir, I concur heartily in the closing language 
of the sentiment, — " The hallowed influence of their lives 
and labors, diffused through the community, will never die." 
No, sir, it will not die. Let us hope that it will live and 
flourish ; let us hope and pray that the good influence, which 
has come from our fathers to us, may be like a pure and holy 
stream, widening and deepening and increasing in all future 
time. And so, when the children of the ancient town of 
Bridgewater shall come in 1956, from " the North and the 
South, the East and the West," to the Third Centennial 
Anniversary, may they come with as warm and joyous hearts 
as w^e do this day ! 

Mr. President, allow me, before I close, to say that I am 
here to-day in the home of my early years, in the home of my 
childhood and youth, in the home of my earliest memories and 
affections. I rejoice to be here. I rejoice to see the family 
at home so much enlarged and improved ; to see so many 
new brothers and sisters in the " old homestead." God bless 
them all, and multiply them a thousand-fold ! 

Mr. President, permit me to close by offering the follow- 
ing sentiment : — 

" The children of Bridgewater, who have been abroad, 
and have been kindly invited to return home, present their 
hearty thanks for the generous hospitality which they have 
received in the ' old homestead.' " 



7. " The Judiciary of Massachusetts, — the auchor which holds the Ship of State 
fast to her moorings, whatever storms may assail her." 

Hon. George P. Sanger, one of the Judges of the 
Court of Common Pleas, being called upon to respond, 
spoke, in substance, as follows : — 

16 



122 BRIDGEWATER 

I regret, Mr. President, for your sake, and for that of the 
brothers and sisters before us, that it had not fallen to him 
to respond to this sentiment whose name instantly occurs to 
every one, as the profound lawyer, and the most able, learned, 
and upright judge, whenever, in our Commonwealth, the 
judiciary is referred to, and who, present here as a descendant 
of one of the former worthies of the town, has already an- 
swered to a sentiment complimentary to himself. But his 
presence makes my duty light ; for my best response to the 
sentiment to which you have done me the honor to ask me 
to reply is simply to point you to him, who, throughout the 
Commonwealth, is known and honored as the upright and 
honorable man, and, over the nation and across the ocean, is 
recognized and appreciated as the learned and profound judge. 

You will permit me, Mr. President, to make one suggestion 
in regard to the phraseology of the sentiment. It speaks of 
the Ship of State only as at her moorings, and assigns to the 
judiciary the sphere of holding her to her moorings, whatever 
storms may assail her. This is all true, sir. But our Ship of 
State is not always at her moorings : she has her voyage to 
accomplish ; and, whether her course leads her beneath sunny 
skies or over stormy seas, the judiciary plays its necessary 
and important part ec|ually as in holding her to her moorings. 
For, sir, I believe in that true progress, that steady advance 
with no backward step, majestic as the march of the ages, by 
which commonwealths, as well as individuals, are led forward 
in their upward and onward course. Did I not so believe, 
the times upon which we have fallen would be to me most 
grievous ; and the incidents of the past few weeks, still fresh 
in the hearts of the people, would overwhelm me with un- 
utterable sorrow. The low wail of liberty that comes up to 
us from the Federal Capitol, where freedom of speech is 
stricken down in what should be her sanctuary ; and the 
agonizing shrieks that pierce our ears from the Western 
prairies, where the sons and daughters of the Free States are 
insulted, oppressed, outraged, and murdered, simply because 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 123 

they would keep that fair garden of the worki open to free- 
dom, — would burden me to the earth, did I not believe, 
that, even now, a brighter day is beginning to dawn, and that 
the historian of American liberty will look upon this year 
as the time when, and these acts as the crowning aggressions 
by which, the free people of the nation were at last to be 
aroused to the determination, that thenceforward, for ever, 
the blight of slavery should not be extended. And, sir, may 
not this be one of the lessons that this time and occasion 
teach ? Looking forth upon these fair fields, which our 
fathers, with unremitting toil, redeemed from the wilderness, 
should we not pledge ourselves anew to lives of honorable 
and manly labor ? Standing by the sods that rest lightly 
upon their honored dust, let us dedicate ourselves for the 
future to a life, as nearly as may be, as patient, as enduring, 
as frugal, as honest, as patriotic, as Christian, and so as fruit- 
ful, as theirs. Living in a land by them made free, let us 
consecrate ourselves for ever as imtiring champions of reli- 
gious freedom and republican liberty. 

In the Appendix, Mr. President, to Mitchell's ''History 
of Bridgewater," which has been referred to so often and so 
favorably to-day, there is a preface, written by the Mathers, 
of religious memory, to a published sermon of, I think, the 
Rev. ]Mr. Keith, the first minister of this town, in which 
they speak of the then reputation of Bridgewater as that of 
" a most pious and a most praying town ; " and to the piety 
and prayers of its people do they attribute the many mercies 
which God had vouchsafed to them. I give you, sir, as a 
sentiment : — 

" The most praying and most pious town of Bridgewater : 
May its descendants imitate the example of their ancestors ! 
and so to themselves insure the great reward." 



8. " The Adopted Children of our Common Mother. — We extend to them the 
hand of fellowship, and welcome them to all the blessings and privileges of our 
common inheritance." 



124 BRIDGEWATER 

Hon. William Baylies, of West Bridgewater, re- 
sponded as follows : — 

Mr. President, — I shall not attempt to make what 
might properly be called a speech. Such an attempt would 
require an effort beyond my strength, both of body and mind. 
I must, therefore,, in replying to the toast just offered, restrict 
myself to narrow limits and a few words. 

To be recognized, on this occasion and in this presence, 
as an adopted son of Bridgewater, — Old Bridgewater, in all 
her territorial entireness and integrity, — is gratifying to my 
feelings : nothing could be more so. I acknowledge the 
relationship, and am proud of it. Old Bridgewater I shall 
never forget : the remembrance of her is dear to my 
heart, and will be so till that heart shall become as cold 
as marble. 

And though I was not born within her limits, and though 
my life-blood does not " track its parent lake " through her 
first or early settlers or their descendants, yet I believe that 
I appreciate the merits and services of those good and true 
men as justly and as highly, that I respect and venerate their 
characters as much, and that I join in this celebration, in- 
tended to revive, to honor, and perpetuate their memory, as 
cordially, as though I had been a native of the soil of Old 
Bridgewater, and my cradle had been rocked within her 
limits. 

The founders of Bridgewater were men of no ordinary 
stamp. Though sorely beset and severely tried, yet, with 
unflinching fortitude, surmounting all obstacles, and throwing 
off all encumbrances, they accomplished their purpose ; they 
laid the foundation of a great town, — a princely munici- 
pality. They were men of enlarged minds and a wise policy. 
Appreciating the value of knowledge, they provided liberally, 
considering their means, for the education of their children. 
Knowing the vital importance of religion to states, commu- 
nities, and individuals, they made liberal provision, as far as 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 125 

their ability would admit, for the maintenance of puhlic wor- 
ship and the preaching of the gospel. 

Old Bridgewater was highly favored and blessed in her 
clergymen ; and, when they passed away, she lost some of 
the "most precious jewels of her coronet." It is not mv 
purpose, nor am I qualified, to speak their praises ; but of 
one with M-hom I was intimately acquainted, and who honored 
me with his friendship, I must be indulged in a more parti- 
cular notice. I refer to the late Dr. John Reed, who was 
the minister of the Old West Parish when I came here fifty- 
seven years ago. 

He was a man of plain, simple, unaflfected manners, with 
a heart free from all guile ; of great sensibility, and overflow- 
ing with the milk of human kindness ; but possessed of a 
strong mind, and of great reasoning powers. He was very 
familiar with the Scriptures, and a learned expounder of their 
doctrines, and of the great principles of Christianity. He 
was not called a brilliant preacher, holding very cheap all 
the arts of rhetoric : but he certainly was an effective, and, I 
think, an eloquent preacher; for he convinced the judgment 
by the force of his argument, and penetrated and subdued 
the heart by the pathos of his delivery. 

But he had merit higher than this. What he preached to 
others he practised himself. His doctrines were exemplified 
in his life and conversation. 



" His preaching much, but more his practice, wrought 
A living sermon of the truths he taugiit." 



This, I know, is a slight and feeble tribute to the memory 
of a great and good man ; but it is sincere, and comes from 
the heart. 

I will now conclude with a few words addressed particu- 
larly to those who are here from the four Bridgewaters, We 
all know that Old Bridgewater no longer exists as a corpora- 
tion, except in contemplation of law. She has been dismem- 



1 26 BRIDGEWATER 

bered, — divided into four towns, separated from each other 
by distinct and independent organizations. This separation 
is fixed, and will remain. Ke-union is not desired, and, if 
it were, would be hardly practicable. But still there may 
be a union, not created by law, but a voluntary union, — a 
union of hearts, irrespective of town lines and town organiza- 
tions, but not conflicting with them, nor interfering with 
them, — a union formed and supported by social and 
friendly intercourse, and by a disposition to promote the 
interests and happiness of each other. By cultivating this 
friendly and Christian spirit, the four Bridgewaters will 
remain united in the best sense of the word, and be Old 
Bridgewater still ; and I say, from the bottom of my heart, 
Old Bridgewater for ever ! 



9. " Those xrliQ have practked the Healing Art in the Ancient Townof Bridgeioater, 
or can trace their Descent therefrom. — Skilful in the prevention and cure of disease, 
each of them, like an apostle of old, may ■well be called 'the beloved physician.' " 

Dr. Ebenezer Alden, of Randolph, replied sub- 
stantially as follows : — 

Mr. President, — I thank you for your kind personal 
notice, and especially for your high compliment to the pro- 
fession of which I am a member. 

I cannot feel myself to be a stranger here to-day. Of the 
five generations which have intervened between myself and 
the stripling who first leaped upon Plymouth Rock, and who 
was the last male survivor of the " Mayflower," four were 
inhabitants of Bridgewater. 

Joseph, second son of Hon. John Alden, of Duxbury, was 
a proprietor in his father's right, and came here as early as 
1656. He was much respected, and received the title of 
Goodman, as your town-records show. He died, in 1697, 
at the age of seventy-three ; and his remains were, without 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 127 

doubt, deposited in the ancient burying-ground, but the 
exact place of his sepulture knoweth no man of this genera- 
tion. Could his descendants of the present day do a more 
fitting thing than to erect a j)lain monument to his memory ? 

Joseph Alden, son of Joseph, was a resident in the south 
precinct, and an officer in the church there ; where he died, 
at the age of eighty, in 17-17. Then followed in succession 
two Daniels ; one the husband, the other a son, of Abigail, 
daughter of Judith Shaw, whose character has just been so 
graphically delineated by her great-grandson, Hon. Lemuel 
Shaw, Chief Justice of the Commonwealth. They were both 
good men and true ; residents in Bridge water for a time, 
but finally removed, — one to find a resting-place in Stafford, 
Conn. ; the other in Lebanon, N.H. I may add, that, like 
their fathers, they enjoyed not only the blessing of the upper 
and the nether springs, but, according to the promise, an 
abundant heritage of children ; and that, with rare exceptions, 
they have honored the memory and training of their sires. 

My father settled as a physician in the immediate vicinity 
of Bridgewater in 1781, and for many years was in habits of 
frequent — I had almost said daily — intercourse with its 
inhabitants ; and, for nearly half a century since his death, 
the kindness to the father has not been v/ithholden from the 
son. My interest in these scenes, therefore, Mr. President, 
is similar to your own. I thank you again for an invitation 
to visit the old domicile, and to unite with you in celebrating 
a common ancestry. 

But, sir, in the sentiment to which I have been invited to 
respond, you allude to the medical profession ; and I thank 
you for the allusion. Next to the Christian ministry, I 
maintain that there is no more useful or honorable calling 
than that of the good physician. He is with you from the 
cradle to the grave ; from the first struggle into life, through 
all its morbid changes, to its close. He is an inmate of your 
families and firesides, — in the hour of peril, to ward off 
danger ; to call back the ebbing tide of life, when each pulsa- 



128 BRIDGEWATER 

tion is apprehended to be the last ; to restore the wife to the 
embraces of her husband, and the child to the bosom of its 
mother ; and by his assiduity and skill, and the blessing of 
God upon his efforts, to send joy and gladness into hearts 
stricken and oppressed with emotions which no language can 
express. And, when he can do nothing more, he stands by 
your dying pillow, a sympathizing, sorrowing friend, to miti- 
gate, as far as he may, the pains of separation between the 
departing spirit and its earthy tenement. 

Such was Samuel Fuller, one of the company who landed 
in Plymouth in 1620, the first physician in New England, — 
first in the order of time, and a model physician in character. 
For twelve years he went in and out among the people ; like 
a guardian angel, making all happy with whom he associated. 
He was frequently requested to extend his labors beyond the 
boundaries of Plymouth Colony and the neighboring Indian 
tribes. Twice — viz., in 1628 and 1629 — he visited Salem, 
by desire of Governor Endicott, during the prevalence of 
severe sickness among the newly arrived immigrants ; and 
his efforts were attended with the most gratifying success. 
In a letter to Governor Bradford, bearing date June 28, 1630, 
he says, " I have been to Mattapan (Dorchester), and have 
let some twenty of those people blood." But Dr. Fuller was 
eminent not only in his profession, but in other walks of life. 
Before he left Holland, he had been chosen an officer in 
Robinson's church. His judgment in ecclesiastical affairs 
was highly valued. He was a wise counsellor, a faithful 
friend, a zealous and consistent Christian. Too soon for the 
church and for his country, he was called to go up higher. 
He died of epidemic fever in 1633 ; and the people " mourned 
with a great and very sore lamentation." 

From that time to the present, the Old Colony has had a 
succession of physicians, who, if they have not all attained 
the eminence of Samuel Fuller, have adorned their profes- 
sion, and secured the respect of their contemj)oraries. 

Time would fail me to present a catalogue of their names, 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 129 

much more the briefest sketch of their characters. They are 
embahned in the memories of a grateful posterity, and have 
an imperishable monument in your hearts. 

Many of the early ministers in the Old Colony practised 
medicine as well as preached the gospel ; not intending by 
this to obtrude themselves into the business of the regular 
physician, or, as quaint Sir Thomas Browne has it, " to chase 
two hares at one time," but as a necessity in the absence of 
more efficient helpers. Such were Rev. Charles Chauncy, at 
Scituate ; Rev. Samuel Brown, at Abington ; Rev. John 
Shaw, of Bridgewater ; and others. 

Thomas and Comfort Starr, Matthew Fuller, Samuel Sea- 
bury, Thomas Little, and Francis Le Baron, were reputable 
physicians and chirurgeons in Plymouth and the vicinity at 
an early day. In later times, we find the names of Bryant, 
Hitchcock, Otis, Lathrop, Winslow, Crane, Carver, Shaw, 
Thaxter, Thacher, and many more ; some of whom, in the 
revolutionary contest, were distinguished as patriots as well 
as physicians. 

In the immediate place of our assembling, we call to 
mind, in succession, the names of Howard, Perkins, Dunbar, 
and Whitman ; the latter a personal friend of my own, as 
well as of many who hear me. They and their associates 
were noble men, worthy of the times in which they lived, 
and of the reputation they secured ; and they have left to 
their successors an example which may be safely imitated. 

Allow me, Mr. President, in conclusion, to propose the 
following sentiment : — 

" Our Puritan ancestors and their immediate descendants, 
the first settlers of Bridgewater. They appreciated moral 
worth in all the departments of society. The best tribute 
we can offer to their memories is to cherish their principles, 
and to transmit them, with the institutions they originated, 
to coming generations." 



17 



130 BRIDGEWATER 

10. " The Memm'y of Nahmn Ilitchell, the Jllstorian of Bridgewater, — an honor 
to the science of sacred music; an upright judge; and a faithfal legislator, both of 
the State and nation. His untiring industry, in rescuing from oblivion the memorials 
of the f)ast, deserves the gratitude of succeeding generations." 

The following notice of Judge Mitchell was submit- 
ted by Hon. Aaron Hobart, of East Bridgewater : — 

The above sentiment is one most fitting for the occasion. 
He whom it commemorates was distinguished by a long life, 
— a large portion of it spent in the practice of an honorable 
profession, and in the service of his country. It was my good 
fortune, more than fifty years ago, to enter his office as a law 
student, and reside in his family. From that time to his 
sudden death in Plymouth, where he had gone to join in 
celebrating the two hundred and thirty-third anniversary of 
the embarkation of the Pilgrim Fathers at Delft Haven, I 
have known and held him, as all who knew him did, in great 
respect. 

Judge Mitchell was a descendant, in the fourth degree, 
from Experience Mitchell, who came to Plymouth in the 
third ship, the *' Ann," in 1623. He was the son of Gushing 
Mitchell, and Jennet, his wife, who was a daughter of Hugh 
Orr, of Bridgewater, but a native of Lochwinnoch, in Scot- 
land, and was born Feb. 12, 1769. Having been fitted by 
Beza Hayward, of Bridgewater, he entered Harvard College 
in 1785, and graduated in course, in 1789, with what repu- 
tation for scholarship is not known ; but his accuracy in 
matters of scholarship in after-life would seem to render it 
certain that he could have been no mean proficient. His 
part at Commencement was a syllogistic disputation, with 
Asaph Churchill, on the thesis, " Gravitas non est essentialis 
materia, proprietas/'^ After leaving college, he read law with 
the late John Davis, of Plymouth, afterwards Judge of the 
United States District Court ; was admitted to the bar in 
November, 1792 ; and, soon after, opened an office in his 
native place. 




,^yln:i.^^^^,,>,^'7^i.^9>7^^</^<^ 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 131 

He soon atracted attention in his profession ; and the esti- 
mation in which he was hekl by the public, and by those 
who had the appointing power in the State, appears in the 
many offices which were from time to time conferred upon 
him. 

He was nine years a representative in the General Court, 
— seven from Bridgewater, and two from Boston ; a member 
of the eighth Congress of the United States ; senator from 
Plymouth County from 1813 to 1814 ; and a member of the 
Executive Council from 1814 to 1820. On the abolition of 
the old County Court of Common Pleas, and the establish- 
ment of a Circuit Court of Common Pleas in 1811, he, 
though not of the same political party with the ruling power, 
was appointed one of the justices of the new court for the 
southern circuit, comprehending the counties of Plymouth, 
Bristol, and Barnstable, and, on the resignation of Thomas 
B. Adams, succeeded him as Chief Justice. In 1822, he was 
chosen State Treasurer, and held the office for five consecutive 
years. Besides these offices, he received appointments under 
special commissions. He was appointed, with Edward H. 
Eobbins, of Milton, and Nicholas Tillinghast, of Taunton, 
in 1801, to settle a disputed boundary-line between Massa- 
chusetts and Phode Island ; and in 1823, with Mr. Robbins, 
and George Bliss, of Springfield, to settle the line between 
Massachusetts and Connecticut. His last appointment was 
chairman of the first commission for exploring the country 
from Boston to Albany for a railroad.* 

The performance of the various duties of these high and 
responsible offices was confided to competent and safe hands. 
Judge Mitchell was a man of great industry, quickness of 
perception, and caution, and united to a discriminating judg- 
ment the attentiveness and precision of the mathematician. 
His habits of inquiry were so remarkable, that he was never 
satisfied with investigation, nor desisted from it, so long as 

* Judge Mitchell was also an active member of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society. 



132 BRIDGEWATER 

he had less than all the light he could obtain on the subject. 
He was a man that did, and did well, whatever he undertook. 

As a lawyer, he was distinguished for sound learning, and 
fair and honorable practice. The late Chief Justice Parsons, 
not long before his death, at an evening-party in Plymouth, 
one of whom was the venerable and reverend Dr. Kendall, 
when the name of Nahum Mitchell was mentioned, " spoke 
of him freely as a man and lawyer. He said it would be 
improper to draw comparisons between him and other gentle- 
men of the Old-Colony bar. There were, some of them, 
very respectable ; but certainly Mr. Mitchell was among the 
very best, and that no one was more accurate and discrimi- 
nating. He had been in the way of witnessing his accuracy 
and discernment, having been frequently associated with him 
in the same cause. He spoke of him for a quarter of an hour 
in a strain of high encomium." 

His qualifications as a lawyer made him a good judge ; 
and such he was generally esteemed. It was, indeed, some- 
times said of him that he lacked promptness and decision. 
This, however, was only in appearance : the opinion pro- 
bably arose from a desire on his part to do right, which 
led him to defer judgment until the scales of justice ceased 
to vibrate, and he could see a clear preponderance. 

He was in Congress but for one term. There, he was in 
a small minority, and did not participate much, if any, 
in debate, but gave close attention to the business of the 
house, particularly such as related to matters of finance, and 
was active and influential on commitees. 

The principal measures discussed and acted on while he 
was a member were — an amendment of the Constitution, re- 
quiring the electors of President to name, on distinct ballots, 
the persons voted for as President and Vice-President ; the 
impeachment of Judge Chase ; and the purchase of Louisiana 
from France. On all these questions, he, with a majority of 
the Massachusetts delegation, voted in the negative, — against 
the last because he had a doubt (in which Mr. Jefferson, the 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 133 

President, participated, but yielded to the pressure of circum- 
stances) of the right of the treaty -making powei^, under the 
Constitution, to buy territory to be admitted into the Union 
as a State, and also because of an uncertainty as to our title 
under the treaty of cession. 

After attending to all his official duties and correspondence, 
he found himself with many leisure hours on hand. These he 
employed in reading classic authors, among them Ovid's 
" Epistolse Heroidum," in the original, — an interesting book, 
which he " found, in a bookstore in Georgetown, stowed 
away among a heap of second-hand volumes ; " in translating 
the works of Horace into English verse ; and writing an in- 
teresting and amusing poem, in one canto, called the " Indian 
Pudding." He rarely engaged in any amusement, except 
an evening game of chess with Samuel W. Dana, a member 
of Congi?ess from Connecticut ; " in which," he said in a 
letter to a relative, " I am generally conqueror, and have 
therefore become more skilful than my teacher." 

He was a great lover of music, and, from youth to old age, 
studied it as a science. More than fifty years ago, he com- 
menced the publication of the " Bridgewater Collection of 
Sacred Music," of which he was the principal editor, although 
his name never appeared in the titlepage. The work passed 
through nearly thirty editions, and rendered essential service 
in improving the then-existing style of music, by substitut- 
ing, for tunes that were neither dignified, solemn, or decent, 
such as were chaste, classical, and sufficiently simple to be 
adapted to the wants of a worshipping assembly. Many 
pieces of his composition obtained a wide-spread circulation, 
and were generally performed, — among them, an anthem, 
called "Lord's Day," and a piece, of several quarto pages, 
beginning with the words, " Jesus shall reign." He also 
published a series of articles in the " Boston Musical Gazette," 
on the history of music, and wrote a treatise on harmony, 
which a competent judge said, if published, "would have 
done him no discredit." 



134 BRIDGE WATER 

The success of his efforts for reform were extensively 
visible, and especially in the church, where he was a constant 
worshipper. There he was one of the choir for more than a 
quarter of a century ; and assisted by his relative, the late 
Bartholomew Brown, who was pre-eminent for the power 
and excellence of his voice, and the late Bev. Dr. James 
Flint, for fourteen years the minister of the parish, and 
others, he trained it to a degree of perfection in psalmody 
rarely equalled, and gave it an impulse in the right direction, 
that is felt to the present day. 

He was much of an antiquarian, as is evinced by his well- 
written " History of Bridgewater," which is a monument to 
his memory that will endure for centuries, and, it may be 
hoped, as long as the art of printing. That was a work of vast 
labor. Its numerous scattered materials were to be searched 
for and gathered up from the state, county, town, chiirch, and 
family records, and other sources, and reduced to a system. 
This he did with great care, good judgment, and accuracy, — 
considering the peculiar liability to mistakes in a work of the 
kind ; and has thus furnished the people of the Bridgewaters 
with a household book, valuable now and hereafter as a 
repository of historical and genealogical facts most interesting 
to them and their posterity. 

His private character is a model for imitation. He was 
affable and familiar ; his manners were simple and easy ; his 
temper gentle, even, and cheerful ; and his whole deport- 
ment such as to inspire confidence and respect. Hospitality 
reigned in his house ; and cheerfulness beamed from his 
countenance on his happy family, and was reflected back by 
them. He was eminently a man of peace, and, all his life 
long, exerted a peculiarly happy faculty he had to promote 
it in his own neighborhood, and elsewhere within the sphere 
of his influence. He had faults, — and who has not ? — but 
none which should enter into a candid estimation of his 
character. 

It has been said to be as difficult to compare great men as 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 135 

great rivers. Some we admire for one thing, and some for 
another ; and we cannot bring them together to measure their 
exact difference. But taking into the account, as well as we 
may, all the various talents and acquirements that combine to 
make up the whole man, I think it may be justly said, without 
being invidious, that the old town of Bridgewater, though 
numbering among her sons many eminent men, has never 
produced his superior. 

He has now passed away, full of years and full of honors ; 
but his genial face, his tall, erect, dignified person, and elastic 
step, Avill not soon fade from the eyes of those who knew 
him. Nor will the remembrance of his life be limited to the 
days of his contemporaries : another generation will keep his 
memory green. 



11. " To the Emigrants from Bridgewater, who have returned with their descend- 
ants to unite with us this day in commemorating the memory and virtues of our 
forefathers, we bid a most hearty welcome." 

12. " Public Schools, — the Archimedean lever which moves the world. 

13. '■'■ Diixbury, — the honored mother of Bridgewater. Though her children 
wandered thus far into the wilderness to plant the first inland town, they look back 
with affection to the Gurnet Light.''' 



Hon. Seth Sprague, of Duxbury, responded as 
follows : — 

Mk. President, — After listening to the interesting and 
eloquent address of Governor Washburn, the pleasing poem 
of Mr. Reed, and entertained with eloquence, wit, and 
humor for four long hours, it is only to inflict pain and pun- 
ishment on the audience for you to call on any one to speak 
at this late hour. A speaker, who could interest an audience 
thus satiated with good things, must have power equal to a 
galvanic battery that would stir the dead. On my own 
account, I would not utter a single word ; but, as Bridge- 



136 BRIDGEWATER 

water is an offspring of Duxbury, I merely respond to the 
relation, and say, that when Bridgewater, or perhaps a larger 
territory than was assigned her, was purchased from Massa- 
soit, her whole territory, large as it was, was valued at seven 
coats of a yard and a half each, nine hatchets, eight hoes, 
twenty knives, four moose-skins, and ten and a half yards of 
cotton cloth, — the whole not worth more than twenty -five dol- 
lars. Such was the town valued at by the possessors, after a 
long period of occupation by savage tribes, and, from expe- 
rience, was not destined to be increased in value by their 
mode of life, had they possessed it until the present time. 
Peopled by a civilized, Christian people, in the short space 
of two hundred years, the value of this same territory is more 
than five millions current money. Duxbury had the advan- 
tage of Bridgewater, in being settled some fifteen years ear- 
lier ; yet Bridgewater has outstripped her in population and 
wealth. I am astonished when comparing their statistics. 
In 1790, Bridgewater had more population than Duxbury 
and Plymouth, the territory of Plymouth being nearly equal 
to that of Bridgewater. At the present time, the population 
of Old Bridgewater is fifty per cent more than Duxbury and 
Plymouth together. The superior local advantages of Dux- 
bury — situated on the seaboard, with all the advantages of 
coasting, foreign trade, ship-building, the facilities of transpor- 
tation, the fisheries, and inducements to enterprise and expan- 
sion — render the superiority of Bridgewater the more to her 
credit. You must, for the first century at least, and proba- 
bly the first half of the second, have been mainly confined to 
the cultivation of the soil. I cannot call to mind any place, 
with no greater local advantages, that has advanced with equal 
rapidity. The soil of your township is probably superior to 
any town in Plymouth County. As much behind you as we 
are, we rejoice at your success and prosperity. You have a 
right to be proud of your position. I would say more, but 
ought not to have said so much. I will close with a senti- 
ment : — 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 137 

" Old Bridgewater, — daughter of Duxbury and grand- 
daughter of Plymouth, — the date of her birth nearly co-oval 
with her parents. In wealth and population she has excelled 
them both ; and, though cut into four parts, she is as vigor- 
ous and fruitful as ever. Her sires, though far behind her, 
rejoice in her prosperity, and wish you a thousand times as 
many as ye are." 



14. " The ^femory of James Keith, — the first minister ordained in Bridgewater. 
We are tliis day enjoying tlae fruits of liis devotedness to tlie cause of civil and reli- 
ffiaus liberty." 

Hon. James M. Keith, of Roxbury, responded as 
follows : — 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, — A sentiment 
in memory of the honored dead is generally received stand- 
ing and in silence ; and such a reception, in the present case, 
would be, I apprehend, a far more eloquent tribute than any 
I can hojje to offer. Indeed, the vocation of one practised 
in the strife of the forum is little calculated to make him a 
fitting exponent of the virtues of him who ministers at the 
shrines of the temple. And yet there is a beauty and moral 
sublimity in the patient devotion to duty, manifested in the 
daily life of the conscientious Christian minister, which appeals 
even to what some consider the callous heart of the legal 
advocate, in tones more thrilling than the highest-wrought 
periods uttered from the rostrum. 

The eloquence of such a life was shown by the Rev. James 
Keith, the first minister of Bridgewater, for more than fifty-five 
years, amidst the toils, the privations, and the dangers of a 
colonial settlement, in the forests around the spot on which 
we are assembled. Born in Scotland, educated at Aberdeen, 
coming to these shores in 1662, ordained in 1664, he con- 
tinued in the faithful discharge of the duties of his ministry 

18 



138 BRIDGEWATER 

till called to his reward in 1719. He showed his apprecia- 
tion of " Heaven's last, best gift to man," by an early mar- 
riage. He had six sons and three daughters ; and his 
descendants, to the number of more than a thousand, are now 
found scattered through the New-England States, New York, 
Michigan, Missouri, and Minnesota ; showing that, how- 
ever his posterity may have failed of obedience to some of 
the precepts of the Decalogue, they have not forgotten the 
first command given to man. His descendants have been, 
so far as I know, an honest, industrious, and law-abiding 
people. Out of some seven hundred criminal cases reported 
in the decisions of our Supreme Court, only one is found in 
which a Keith M-as a party defendant ; and that was a case 
in which he had been convicted of the illegal sale of intoxi- 
cating liquor, on the testimony of a convicted thief; and 
the Court, like sensible men as well as learned judges, set the 
verdict aside, and thus placed the family name all right upon 
the record. 

The first minister of Bridgewater did not preach, nor did 
his hearers practise, a sickly sentimentality, which showed 
more sympathy for the criminal than love for the observance 
of law ; but he taught, and they believed, in a willing obe- 
dience to law, and in the speedy punishment of its violators. 
They devoutly believed in prayer, and trusted in God ; but 
they also trusted in their own right arms to achieve their de- 
fence. When attacked by the Indians, whom they had treated 
with uniform kindness, they did not abandon their homes, as 
advised by the timid of other settlements, nor trembling wait 
for Omnipotence specially to interpose for their deliverance ; 
but, seizing their weapons with resolute hearts, they attacked 
the foe, and drove him from their settlement. 

Judging the present inhabitants of Bridgewater by their 
past history, one could wish that the plains of Kansas were 
now filled with them ; that they might there repel the hordes 
of violence and oppression, and make those broad savannas 
vocal with the songs of freemen. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 139 

But, at this late hour, I will detain you no longer. I close 
with this sentiment : — 

" Civil and religious liberty, — the priceless inheritance 
left us by our fathers, which must be maintained at all 
hazards, and transmitted unimpaired to our children." 



15. " Woman. — She guides the steps of childhood, cheers the labors of manhood, 
and smooths the pillow of age. To her we offer the warmest sentiments of fjrati- 
itide and Zwe." 

16. " The Poet of the Day. — His subject has inspired his Muse ; and we have 
listened with delight to the words of her inspiration." 

Mr. Reed, in reply, said. Our friend Governor 
Washburn had remarked that he never felt more at 
home in his life ; but he (Mr. Reed) must confess 
that he never felt less so, surrounded as he was by 
reverend men of all professions. He then gave, as a 
toast, — 

"The descendants of Mrs. Judith Shaw (to whose memory 
respectful allusion had been made at the table), — the best 
proofs of her piety and frugality." 



17. '■'■ The Memory of Massasoit, — the friendly sachem, who sold the township 
of Bridgewater." ^ / ' j 

A representative of the Pokanoket tribe^ made the 
following response : — 

Brothers, — I have come a long way to meet you. I am 
glad that our good old father Massasoit still lives in your 
memory. These fields were once the hunting-grounds of 
the red men ; but they were sold to the white men of 



140 BRIDGEWATER 

Bridgewater. The red men have been driven towards the 
great water at the West, and have disappeared like the dew ; 
while the white men have become like the leaves on the trees, 
and the sands on the sea-shore. 

Brothers, our hunting-grounds grow narrow ; the chase 
grows short ; the sun grows low ; and, before another Cen- 
tennial Celebration of the Incorporation of Bridgewater, our 
bones will be mingled with the dust. 

Brothers, may we live in peace ! and may the Great Spirit 
bless the red men and the white men ! 



18. " The next Centennial Anniversary. — ]\Iay it find the doors of the old home- 
stead wide open to receive its returning children; its inmates contented, prosperons, 
and happy; and our country tiX peace, united, and free!''' 

By William Allen : — 

"■Bridgewater, Somersetshire, Old England. — Our friend and correspondent: 
God bless her ! She was the first in all the British empire to send a petition to 
Parliament for the extirpation of the slave-trade. May neither she, nor her name- 
sake in Massachusetts, cease her efi'orts in the cause of truth till all humanity is 
free! " 



A sentiment complimentary to Senator Sumner was 
offered, and res^Donded to by Rev. Paul Couch, of 
North Bridgewater. 



A scroll, of which the following is a copy, was cir- 
culated in the tent for signatures : — 

" Other men labored ; and ye are entered into their 
labors." — St. John, iv. 38. 

" We who have assembled this day to commemorate the 
Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town 



k 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 141 

of Bridgewater, in grateful remembrance of the toils and suf- 
ferings of our ancestors, and in the hope that the inheritance 
they bequeathed to us may be guarded and enjoyed by 
their descendants to remotest generations, here record our 
names. 

" West Bkidgewater, Mass., June 3, 1856." 



The following Songs, by Mr. D. W. C. Packard, 
of North Bridgewater, were prepared to be sung at 
the table, but were omitted for the want of time : — 



The glorious band, that brave old band, 
Of honest heart and strong right liand, — 
Oh ! noble were the deeds they dared ; 
And beauteous, who their danger shared. 
Their hallowed dust our hillsides hold, 
Our valleys bloom above their mould ; 
But their spirit lives in our souls to-day : 
It lives — it lives — shall live alway. 

They found these fields when the wolf was here 
When through the thicket leaped the deer ; 
When the Indian's council-fires were red, 
And these peaceful vales with blood were fed. 
The Indian's hard-fought fields are o'er, 
And his council-fires are seen no more ; 
But our fathers' spirit it lives to-day : 
It lives — it lives — shall live alway. 

For Freedom was their life-blood given ; 
In that dear cause they kneeled to Heaven ; 
And Freedom, from the dust they trod. 
Springs up like verdure from the sod. 



142 BRIDGEWATER 

Their hallowed dust our hillsides hold, 
Our viilleys'bloom above their mould; 
But their spirit lives in our souls to-day : 
It lives — it lives — shall live alway. 



From north, from south, from east, from west. 
We come, the sacred spot to bless, 
AVhere tirst our fathers' anthems broke 
The silence of the wilderness. 

The place, the time, those honored forms, 
Alike our recollection claim ; 
And, like the dove, she hastens back 
To brood o'er each i^emembered name. 

And she shall dress their grassy graves 
With wreaths of amaranthine tlowers. 
And, weeping there, shall smiling turn 
To view the blessings that are ours. 

And long as waves the golden grain 
Above the plains their hands have tilled, 
So long as summer fields are green. 
Shall memory's cup to them be filled. 



More sentiments and songs had been prepared for 
the occasion ; but the end of the centennial day drew 
near, and they were omitted. 

" Union, peace, and joy had crowned that festive day," — 

when a vote was passed to adjourn to the next Cen- 
tennial Anniversary. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 143 



LETTERS. 



The following letters, among others, were received 
from gentlemen who had been invited to attend the 
celebration, but were not read, for want of time : — 

From His Excellency Henry J. Gardner. 

Boston, May 29, 1850. 

My dear Sir, — I have delayed till to-day my reply to 
the Committee of Invitation for " the Second Centennial 
Anniversary of the Incorporation of the ancient Town of 
Bridgewater," in hopes that my official duties would permit 
me to be present on so interesting an occasion ; but present 
appearances, as well as ascertained engagements, will, beyond 
a question, deprive me of that pleasure. 

Since the day that Capt. Miles Standish purchased of the 
Indians the territory of your town, for a miscellaneous collec- 
tion of coats, hatchets, hoes, knives, and moose-skins, it has 
had historic associations connected with its progress, inte- 
resting alike to the antiquarian and the general reader. 

My purpose, however, now, is not to attempt writing 
a new " Bridgewater Treatise," but to express my sincere 
regrets at my inability to be present on the od of June next. 

I remain, very respectfully, 

You friend and fellow-citizen, 

Henry J. Gardner 

Austin Packard, Esq., West Bridgewater. 



1.44 BRIDGEWATER 

From Hon. Edward Everett. 

Boston, May 7, 1856. 

Dear Sir, — I have your favor of the 5th, inviting me, 
on behalf of the Committee appointed for the purpose, to 
attend the celebration of the Second Centennial Anniversary 
of the Incorporation of the ancient Town of Bridgewater, on 
the 3d of June. 

I am much indebted to the Committee for the honor of 
this invitation. Few toAvns in Massachusetts are of greater 
importance than Bridgewater in the early history of the Old 
Colony, or afford ampler subjects for commemoration at the 
present day. I should have the greatest pleasure, if I were 
able, in being present on an occasion of so much interest, and 
particularly in listening to an address from the eminent gen- 
tleman who is to speak to you. Other engagements, I regret 
to say, put it wholly out of my power. 

With the best wishes for an agreeable celebration, 
I remain, dear sir. 

Respectfully yours, 

Edward Everett. 

Mr. Austin Packakd. 



From Hon. Charles E. Forles. 

Northampton, May 15, 1856. 

My dear Sir, — I have received your invitation to be 
present at the celebration of the Second Centennial Anniver- 
sary of the IncorjDoration of Bridgewater, on the third day of 
June next. Though born in your ancient and respectable 
town, my removal from it took place at so early a period in 
life, that I have no recollection of the event. But, from the 
conversations of others, I became, during my childhood and 
youth, very familiar with the names and characters of many 
of its inhabitants then living ; the greater part of whom, in 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 145 

the ordinary course of nature, are now gathered to the fathers. 
But many of their descendants, of those who bear their 
names and inherit their virtues, will be present, with whom 
it would give me great pleasure to unite in the proposed 
celebration. My engagements, however, will compel me to 
forego this pleasure ; but I beg you to be assured of the 
.sympathy and kind feelings which I shall ever cherish towards 
the inhabitants of my native town, and towards the descend- 
ants of its former inhabitants, in whatever part of the world 
their destiny may have placed them. Accept for yourself, 
and be kind enough to convey to the Committee, my thanks 
for this honor. 

I am, very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 

Charles E. Forbes. 

Austin Packard, Esq. 



From Hon. Israel Washburn, Jun., of Maine. 

House of Eepresentatives, Washington, May 9, 185G. 

Dear Sir, — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt 
of your invitation to be present at the celebration, on the 
third day of June next, of the Second Centennial Anniversary 
of the Incorporation of the ancient Town of Bridgewater. 

I should rejoice exceedingly to be at this " gathering of 
the sons and daughters of the four towns : " for there I 
should meet my relations, and be at home ; and there I should 
have an opportunity to hear the eloquent words of the dis- 
tinguished gentleman who does so much honor to the name 
found oftener than any other in the records of Bridgewater. 
But my duties and engagements here will constrain me to 
forego this pleasure. 

Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

I. Washburn, jun. 

Austin Packard, Esq., for the Committee, &c. 

19 



146 BRIDGEWATER 

From Hon. Elijah Hayward. 

JIcCoxNELSViLLE, Oliio, May 26, 1856. 

Dear Sir, — I have received, and read with much pleasure, 
your letter of the 5th instant, inviting me to be present, on the 
3d of June next, at "the Second Centennial Anniversary of 
the Incorporation of the ancient Town of Bridgewater ; " for 
which I tender to you, and to the Committee of which you 
are the organ, my sincere thanks. A temporary illness of 
the last three weeks has prevented me from earlier making 
my acknowledgments. It would afford me inexpressible 
satisfaction to be present at that time, and to participate in 
the flow of feeling which must then be exhibited, and that 
love of ancestral pride which belongs to the instincts of our 
nature ; but my previous engagements, which cannot be dis- 
pensed with, will, I regret to say, deprive me of that plea- 
sure. 

Being a native of the town, " and to the manor born " in 
1786, and a lineal descendant of at least nine of its original 
proprietors and early settlers, — of which your own ancestor, 
Samuel Packard, was one, — it is impossible for me to be 
indifferent to those impulses which must be manifested on that 
great occasion, and to those affectionate reminiscences which 
add pleasure to the recollections of by-gone events. We 
view the past in the sepulchres of the generations that have 
lived before us ; we see the present in the conflict of human 
reason and the human passions ; and we contemplate the 
unseen future in humility, as in the will of the great Creator, 
to whom alone all time and all knowledge is present. There 
is not probably a square mile of the original eight miles 
square, of the ancient territory of Bridgewater, in which there 
has not been preserved some reminiscent of the first and early 
fathers of the town, worthy the cherished veneration of their 
descendants. 

The motives which ennoble our nature, and the virtues 
which adorn the character of mankind, in which no taint of 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 147 

vice ever intermingled, were most happily illustrated in the 
lives of the first and early settlers of Bridgewater, whose 
example, now fixed on high, presents a spectacle of virtue, 
piety, and patriotism, worthy of the most lasting commemora- 
tion. We should violate the best feelings of filial affection 
and gratitude, if we did not most fully appreciate the result- 
ing consequences of their motives and conduct. 

But there is another sentiment which must inevitably 
interpose itself upon the occasion. Many natives of the 
town, who have long been absent, will then be present, with 
sensations of another character. There is no feeling more 
pure, more chaste, than that which is inspired by the multi- 
tude of the recollections of the place of our birth, and the 
scenes of our childhood, connected with the virtues of our 
ancestors. The clime of our birth, the place where we first 
experienced the sensations of pleasure, and even those of 
pain, — " that mysterious attraction which draws us so gently 
to the first objects of our views and to the earliest of our 
acquaintance," — possess a secret spell of enchanting reflec- 
tion, a charm which time sanctifies to our fondest recollec- 
tions. Even the rude, unlettered savage, — " whose home is 
the forest, and whose habitation is the shade," — an alien to 
many of the ordinary feelings and sentiments of humanity, 
venerates the sepulchres of his fathers, and esteems his birth- 
place holy ground. It is the triumph of nature, true to its 
social instincts, over the most violent passions, and all the 
artifices and refinements of civilization. 

What, then, must have been the emotions of those female 
Pilgrims, the mothers of Bridgewater, when they bade their 
last adieu to the home of their fathers, the land of their birth, 
and to all the delicate and bright hopes of their youth! 
What pious fortitude, Avhat religious zeal, what strong affec- 
tions, what firmness of purpose, and Avhat serene calmness, 
must have set enthroned in their bosoms, to have enabled them 
to forego so much, and to encounter so much, for Christian 
liberty and social peace ! Wonderful women ! daughters 



148 BRIDGEWATER 

of a foreign land ! mothers of a new generation of heroes, 
statesmen, and patriots ! — your descendants — a free people, 
a nation prosperous and happy — cherish the recollection of 
your exalted virtues, and have consecrated them to your 
memories. 

I would, if it were proper, present to the consideration of 
those assembled on the occasion the following sentiment : — 

" Thejirst and early Fathers of ancient Bridgetcater. — Their lineal descendants 
honor themselves by doing honor to their memory." 

And I would also present the following : — 

" The Mothers and Matrons of tlie original Toion. — While they taught their 
offspring the love and the value of civil and religious liberty, they were ever them- 
selves tenacious of the liberty of loving." 

With great respect, your obedient servant, 

Elijah Haywaed. 

Austin Packakd, Esq., West Bridgewater, Mass. 



From Hon. James Savage. 

To the Committee for the Centennial Celebration ) 

at West Bridgewater, on 3d June next. J Boston, May 16, 1856. 

Gentlemen, — Very great pleasure should I have in being 
present at the re-union of ancient Bridgewater, in its fourfold 
strength, on the recurrence of its natal day for the two 
hundredth time ; and great is the attraction that must reach 
widely around from the fact that an appropriate address will 
be delivered by my Mend Governor Washburn. Yet my 
situation forbids me to indulge the hope of partaking in your 
solemnities, as, on that day, I must be in a distant part of the 
country ; and nothing is permitted me but to express most 
grateful acknowledgment for your polite invitation. Private 
friendships would be refreshed by meeting such honored old 
associates as William Baylies and Artemas Hale ; but the 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 149 

advanced years have done much towards making the grass- 
hopper a burden, and leavmg little hope of being endured in 

his garrulity by 

Your most obliged, 

Jas. Savage. 

Austin Packard, Esq. 



From Hon. G. O. Washhurn, of Wisconsin. 

Washington, D.C, May 17, 1856. 

My dear Sir, — It would give me great pleasure to 
accept your polite invitation to be present at the Second 
Centennial Celebration of the Incorporation of the ancient 
Town of Bridgewater ; but my engagements here are of such 
a character as to preclude me from doing so ; which I much 
regret. Hoping that you may have a pleasant time, 

I am, very truly, 

C. C. Washburn. 

Austin Packard, Esq., West Bridgewater, Mass. 



150 BRIDGEWATER 



ADDRESS 



TO THOSE WHO MAY CELEBRATE THE THIRD CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF 
THE INCORPORATION OF BRIDGEWATER. 



PREPARED BY THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED FOR THAT PURPOSE. 



On the third day of last month, the present inhabitants of our 
old and favored town met to commemorate the virtues of a 
peculiar people, the founders of a free and hapj^y community, 
— our forefathers. This is undoubtedly the first instance 
in which a centennial celebration of the town has been held. 
A hundred 5^ears ago, the inhabitants of the colonies were so 
absorbed in the contest at that time raging between the 
mother country and the colonies on the one side, and 
the French and Indians on the other, that little time 
could be spared, and little money expended, for such fes- 
tivities. 

It would be to us highly gratifying, could some memorial 
of a like day of thanksgiving, held a hundred years ago, now 
greet our eyes. Pleasant would it be to see the names of 
those who might have been the actors in such a day of rejoi- 
cing ; to read a recital of their impressions of the past, their 
condition in the then present, and their hopes and anticipa- 
tions of the future ; and esjjecially if they had prepared, for 
transmission to us, their expressions of interest in those, who, 
at this date, have arisen to fill their places. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 151 

No such memorial can be found ; but we, from the sym- 
pathies of our nature, judging that, to those who shall be 
here one hundred years hence, a word of congratulation must 
be welcome, will with pleasure speak to-day to those, who, 
on the third day of June, 1956, may meet to rejoice over the 
past ; who, in speaking of the men of ancient time, will look 
back upon us, we hope, as a part of an honored line of an- 
cestry. 

As we glance at the past, and then turn to the future, a 
multitude of thoughts press upon the mind; and the first 
thought is expressed in the question. If the change in the 
future be as great as that in the past, what will be the condi- 
tion of the inhabitants of New England a hundred years 
hence ? 

Favored, indeed, has been our community, in common with 
our nation. When, in the course of the century just closed, 
our fathers were oppressed, and their cry rose to Heaven 
for help, God heard their supplications, and brought them 
deliverance. To an impoverishing and deadly strife suc- 
ceeded the comforts of peace. The inventive faculty of man 
has here found ample scope. All the elements of the mate- 
rial world have been taxed to aid in the advancement of 
America. Inventions and discoveries have been presented 
to view, astonishing even to ourselves. It is within a very 
brief period that lightning has become the messenger of 
thought ; and information is transmitted through our country, 
as it were in a moment, from centre to circumference. The 
sun, with mathematical precision, performs the office of the 
landscape or portrait painter ; while the researches of science 
have, by the use of chloroform, rendered surgical operations 
painless. 

Precisely forty-nine years have passed since the first appli- 
cation of steam to navigation in this country, and a little 
more than a quarter of a century since it was first applied to 
land carriages. This powerful agent, the steam-engine, — 
the very " king of machines ; " superseding, in a great mea- 



152 BRIDGEWATER 

sure, the former cumbrous methods of locomotion, and daily 
applied more and more to the promotion of the various 
branches of art, — is revolutionizing the country. Its future 
results it is impossible to conceive. 

Within the last fifteen years, the friends of education have 
been making unusual efforts, and we trust with a good degree 
of success, to discover the best means of educating the youth of 
our country. Intense activity is the great characteristic of our 
community. The care-worn countenance and toil-hardened 
hand, the hum of peaceful industry, and the reverence 
for things divine, evince the causes of the productive fields 
of our rural districts, and the wealth of our cities. A pros- 
perity unexampled in the history of any earlier nation has 
attended ours ; and well may the language of the ancient 
prophet be applied to us, "What could have been done more 
to my vineyard that I have not done ? " 

But, notwithstanding the prosperity of the community, it 
must be regretted that the morals of the people have not 
fully kept pace with their privileges. The ordinances of 
divine worship do not, from a part of the people, receive that 
hearty support 'which the spiritual wants of our nature 
demand. A portion, on the sabbath, absent themselves from 
the house of God. While very few openly oppose religious 
institutions, too many treat the subject with indifference or 
lukewarmness. 

The cause of temperance, which has suffered ever since 
the first century of our existence as a town, still meets with 
obstacles to its success. Men of wealth and influence do not 
always, in this matter, come with that hearty determination 
to aid in the exaltation of our community which every true 
patriot must devoutly desire. For the promotion of this 
cause, temperance societies have been organized by indivi- 
duals pledging themselves neither to use ardent spirits as a 
beverage, nor to encourage others in the use or sale of them. 
We are gratified to remember, and it may interest you to 
know, that one of the first of these in the United States was 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 153 

the " Bridgewater Temperance Society," formed about forty 
years ago. 

At this moment, a deep excitement pervades our country 
in relation to the subject of human slavery. Liberty of 
speech, and the " inalienable right to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness," are by many openly denied ; and Kan- 
sas, the very territorial centre of our Union, is now the great 
battle-field between justice and oppression. The question 
now is. Shall Freedom, with its attendant train of blessings, 
smile upon those lovely fields, and thereafter upon the as yet 
unsettled parts of our national domain ; or shall Slavery, 
with its legions of iniquities, blast the fair face of nature, and 
struggle to reach the summit of glory, unheeding the conse- 
quent tears, groans, and degradation of multitudes made in 
the image of God ? 

For several years past, great efforts have been made to 
settle difficulties between nations by arbitration. Peace 
societies, and a convention of representatives from various 
civilized nations, have striven to hasten the reign of the 
Prince of Peace throughout the world. Disputes between 
nations, that, half a century ago, would have ended in the 
horrors of exterminating war, have, by such means, been 
amicably settled ; though the heart sickens to think of the 
dreadful woes inflicted by man upon his brother man, in 
the war just ended between Russia and the combined armies 
of England, France, and Turkey. 

The sabbath school, an institution established among us 
almost within the past generation, has been the means of 
great good in our immediate community, as well as through- 
out our country, and many parts of the civilized world. 

Till within a recent period, the ancient township of Bridge- 
water continued under but one corporation. The large extent 
of territory induced our people, for greater convenience in 
municipal matters, to divide, in a friendly spirit, into four 
sister towns, each retaining Bridgewater as a part of its name. 

20 



154 BRIDGEWATER 

We are still one in feeling, and rejoice in the good old name 
of Bridgewater. May the name of each remain unchanged 
so long as the Pilgrim stock shall last ! Like a watch-tower, 
may it ever diffuse the living flame of devotion to truth and 
duty! 

As we with reverence now pass the old churchyards 
where " the rude forefathers of our hamlets sleep," so when, 
after the lapse of another century, you will, in the cemeteries 
on the shady hillsides of this our old home, gently pass by 
the moss-covered tablets indicating our last earthly resting- 
place, and as you decipher the names of the present actors in 
the drama of life, may you also read on the tablet of the 
heart the records of many lives that were " long because they 
answered life's great end " ! While you will look back with 
a smile upon the foibles and unmeaning fashions of the pre- 
sent day, but with respect upon all efforts to reach a higher 
state of cultivation, moral and intellectual, may you realize, 
that, while customs change. Christian principle is ever the 
same, — that none " ever hardened himself against God, and 
prospered " ! 

As we are writing these lines on this, the great anniversary 
of our national independence, the notes of rejoicing at the 
good fortunes of the land, borne on each passing breeze, bring 
to mind the fact, that these municipalities are but parts of a 
stupendous whole ; that the weal or woe of one portion tends 
materially to affect that of all the rest. 

The mightiest of questions are now presented to the indi- 
vidual and national conscience, surpassing any that have 
arisen within the memory of living men. 

To the welfare of yourselves and your successors, we look 
with a solicitude we cannot express. In infinite wisdom, the 
Father of all the generations of man has concealed the future 
from our view. As on the tempestuous sea of life the bark 
shall sail freighted with the destinies of this people, may that 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 155 

great chart which guided the Pilgrim Fathers ever teach you 
to avoid the rocks and shoals on which so many nations have 
foundered ! And that righteousness which alone exalts both 
individuals and nations, as it blessed our fathers, so may it 
bless our descendants through all future ages ! 

William Allen. 
Paul Couch. 
Joseph Kingman. 
Edward Southworth, jun. 
Thomas Cushman. 
Asa Mitchell. 
dwelley fobes. 
East Bkidgewater, July 4, 185C. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 



"A Muster-Roll of the Company under the command of Capt. Thomas 
Mitchell (belonging to the Regiment whereof Thomas Clapp, Esq., 
IS Colonel), that marched, on the Alarm for the Relief of Fort 
William-Henry, in August, 1757." * 



Daniel Pettingal. 
Beriah Willis. 
John Bolton. 
Thomas Carr. 
Robert Ripley. 
Benjamin Munk. 
Daniel Littlefield. 
.Jonathan Randall. 
John Loring. 
James Allen. 
Eliphalet Caiy. 
Timothy Hayward. 
Edward Packard. 
Elisha Hooper. 
Robert Gilmore. 
Joseph Samson. 
Ephraira Allen. 



George Harris. 
Joshua Willis, jun. 
Perez Waterman, jun. 
James Snow. 
Jonas Turner. 
John Doughty. 
Robert Leach. 
Henry Chamberlain. 
Jonathan Willis. 
Benjamin Mahurin. 
Henry Washburn. 
Joseph Keith. 
Stephen Leach. 
Eliab Washburn. 
David Perkins, jun. 
Uriah Richard. 
Abisha Leach. 



Josiah Mahurin. 
William Barlow. 
Amos Hayward. 
Joseph Harvey. 
Isaac Lee. 
Jonathan Pratt. 
Josiah Leach. 
Moses Sash. 
Matthew Buck. 
Joseph Belcher. 
George Packard. 
Francis Goward. 
Hezekiah Mahurin. 
Timothy Fobes. 
Samuel Packard, jun. 
Gregory Belcher. 
Ebenezer Edson. 



* The original '' Roll " is now in an almost perfect state of preservation. — June 3, 1856. 



The following is copied from " 13o.ston News-Letter," Oct. 21, 
1773: — 

" Bridgewater, Oct. 13, 1773. 

" Col. Edsou's Regiment, consisting of nine foot-companies of this Town and 
two of Abington, was reviewed this day by his Excellency the Governor (Hutchin- 
son). His Excellency was met at the entrance of the Town by a number of the 
principal inhabitants, and conducted to the house of the Rev. Mr. Angler (John), 
near the place of parade. There were about seven hundred men in arms, and a 
greater concourse of people than has been known to have been in the Town upon 
anv other occasion." 



160 



APPENDIX. 



The Review was on the " Common " at East Bridgewater. The 
Rev. John Angier owned and occnpied the place now owned and 
occupied by James H. Mitchell, Esq., of East Bridgewater. 



" MuSTER-RoLL OF THE LATE CAPT. JaCOB AlLEN'S * COMPANY OF THE FlEST 

Massachusetts Regiment of Foot in the Service of the United 
States, commanded by Col. John Bailey; taken for the Month of 
February, 1778." 

COMMISSIONED. 

Jan. 1, 1777 Jonathan Allen, First Lieutenant. 

^^ ,, JoTiiAN Ames, Second Lieutenant. 

„ RoTHEAs Mitchell, Ensign. 







4. 


Lot Dwelley. 


22. 


Henry Richmond. 




Sergeants. 


5. 


Boatswain Duel. 


23. 


Rufus Robbins. 


1. 


Amos Harden.! 


6. 


Richard Farrington. 


24. 


Enoch Stocken. 


2. 


Watson Babington. 


7. 


James Welch. 


25. 


Enos Whitman. 


3. 


William Latham. 


8. 


William Parsons. 


26. 


Japhet Allen. 






9. 


Prince Hall. 


27. 


Elisha Curtis. 




Co7^orals. 


10. 


March Lewis. 


28. 


Brister Drake. 


1. 


Daniel Ramsdill. 


11. 


Thomas Latham. 


29. 


Michael Fitzgerald 


2. 


Caleb Howard. 


12. 


William Fowller. 


30. 


Silas Harris. 


3. 


Solomon Conant. 


13. 


Reuben Mitchell. 


31. 


Abraham Perkins. 






14. 


Jonathan Mehurin. 


32. 


John Lope. 




Brum and Fife. 


15. 


WiUiam Mattris. 


33. 


Micha White. 


1. 


Eliphaz Mitchell. 


16. 


Robert Robinson. 


34. 


John Wilkens. 






17. 


Isaac Houghton. 


35. 


James Ramsdill. 




Privates. 


18. 


Peleg Pendill. 


36. 


Sippeo Solomon. 


1. 


John Bolton. 


19. 


David Poor. 


37. 


Joseph Semore. 


2. 


1 


20. 


James Robinson, jr. 


38. 


X Wood. 


3. 


John Clapp. 


21. 


William Robbins. 







RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. 



WEST BRIDGEWATER. 

First Congregational, Unitarian, founded 1656. No settled minister. 

Baptist . . . Cochesett Village, founded 1781. No settled minister. 

Meth.-Epis., Cochesett Village, founded 1840. Rev. Edward B. Hinckley, Pastor. 

New Jerusalem founded 1847. No settled minister. 



* Killed at the Battle of Stillwater, Sept. 19, 1777. 
t Killed at Kingsbridge, N. Y., .Tuly, 17R1 



} Name lost 



APPENDIX. 



161 



BRIDGE WATER. 

First Congregational, Unitarian . established 1716. 
Congregational, Trinitarian . . . establislied 1822. 
Cong., Trin., Scotland Village . . established 1833. 

Episcopal founded 1747. 

New Jerusalem founded 1833. 

Catholic House erected 1855. 



Rev. John J. Putnam, Pastor. 
Rev. David Brigham, Pastor. 
Rev. Otis Rockwood, Pastor. 
No settled clergyman. 
Rev. Thos. P. Rodman, Pastor. 
Rev. A. L. Roache, Pastor. 



EAST BRIDGEWATER. 

First Congregational, Unitarian . . founded 1723. Rev. Joseph H. Phipps, Pastor. 

Union Society of E. & W. Bridgew. founded 1826. Rev. Philo B. Wilcox, Pastor. 

Trinitarian Congregational founded 1849. Rev. Baalis Sanford, Pastor. 

New Jerusalem founded 1834. Rev. Timothy 0. Paine, Pastor. 

Universalist founded 1834. No settled clergyman. 

Methodist-Episcopal founded 1850. Rev. Eli Strobridge. 

NORTH BRIDGEWATER. 

First Congregational, Trinitarian . founded 1738. Rev. Paul Couch, Pastor. 

South Cong., Trin., Campello Vill., founded 1837. Rev. David T. Packard, Pastor. 

Porter Church, Trinitarian Cong., founded 1850. Rev. Charles L. Mills, Pastor. 

New Jerusalem founded 1827. Rev. Warren Goddard, Pastor. 

First Meth.-Epis. (West Shares) . . founded 1830. Rev. A. B. Wheeler, Pastor. 

Second Methodist-Episcopal .... founded 1851. Rev. Robt. McGonnegal, Pastor. 

Baptist founded 1850. No settled clergjmian. 

Catholic founded 1853. Rev. A. L. Roache, Pastor. 



CENSUS OF 1855. 





West 
Bridgewater. 


Bridgewater. 


East 
Bridgewater. 


North 
Bridgewater. 


Total. 


Population .... 
Americans .... 
Foreigners .... 
Unknown .... 

Under 10 

10 to 20 

20 to 30 

30 to 40 

40 to 50 

50 to 60 

60 to 70 

70 to 80 

80 to 90 

90 to 100 

Age not stated . . . 
No. Families . . . 
No. Dwelling Houses 
No. Polls .... 

Births 

Deaths 

Valuation .... 
Whole Tax .... 
Raised for Com. Schools 
Square miles . . . 


1,734 

1,462 

272 

'434 
345 
311 

243 
159 
108 

80 

36 

18 

'354 
301 
437 

68 
31 

$652,880.00 
4,373.25 
1,200.00 
16' 


8,363* 

2.777 

577 

9 

820 

610 

585 

430 

343 

236 

184 

108 

30 

4 

13 

609 

539 

750 

89 

41 

$1,822,426.00 

9,246.71 

2.500.00 

281-0 


2,930 

2,633 

297 

'477 
564 
574 
409 
259 
231 
158 

53 

19 

' '6 
700 
581 
810 
100 
30 
$1,206,940.00 
8,819.69 
2,500.00 

181-7 


5,208 

4,307 

901 

1,246 

1,030 

1.123 

■790 

451 

298 

170 

71 

15 

2 

18 

1,171 

979 

1,425 

202 

88 

$1,925,378.66 

13,744.12 

3,500.00 


13,235 

11,179 

2,047 

9 

2,971 

2,549 

2,593 

1,872 

1,212 

873 

592 

268 

82 

6 

37 

2,834 

2,400 

3,422 

459 

190 

$5,607,624.66 

36,183.77 

9,700.00 

821-50 



Exclusive of 441 inmates of State Almshouse, the population is 2,922. 
21 



162 APPENDIX. 



STATISTICS OF INDUSTRY IN 1855. 



WEST BRIDGEWATER. 

Furnaces for m. of hollow ware and castings, 4; hollow ware and other castings 

m'd., 295 tons; val. of hollow ware and castings, §16,900; cap., $21,000; 

emp., 29. 
Manufactories of shovels and spades, 1 (partly m'd. in this town, and finished in 

Easton); cap., $10,000; emp., 9. 
Establishments for m. of wagons, sleighs, and other vehicles, 4 ; val. of wagons, 

&c., m'd., $4,680; cap., $1,800; emp., 8. 
Cabinet manufactories, 1; val. of chairs and cabinet ware, $1,000; cap., $200; 

emp., 3. 
Boots of all kinds m'd., 27,600 pairs; shoes of all kinds m'd., 141,700 pairs; val. of 

boots and shoes, $178,460; m. emp., 204; f. emp., 96. 
Val. of straw braid m'd., and not made into bonnets and hats, $383,95; f. emp., 24. 
Charcoal m'd., 6,840 bush.; val. of same, $1,018.60; emp., 4. 
Lumber prepared for market, 189,833 ft.; val. of lumber, $2,970.50; emp., 35, part 

of the time. 
Firewood prepared for market, 985 cords; val. of firewood, $4,633,50; emp., 57, 

pai-t of the time. 
Sheep, 11 ; val. of all sheep, $33 ; wool produced, 61 lbs. 
Horses, 144; val. of horses, $9,194. Oxen, over three j^ears old, 151; steers, under 

three years old, 21; val. of oxen and steers, $8,821. Milch cows, 347; heifers, 

03 ; val. of cows and heifers, $13,346. 
Butter, 20,588 lbs. ; val. of butter, $5,147. Cheese, 5,590 lbs. ; val. of cheese, $698.75. 

Honey, 174 lbs ; val. of honey, $35.34. 
Indian corn, 192 acres; Lidian corn, per acre, 28 bush.; val., $5,386. 
Wheat, 3 acres; wheat, per acre, 16| bush.; val., $125. 
Rye, 28 acres; rye, per acre, 15^ bush; val., $666. 
Barley, 9 acres; barley, per acre, 19 8-9 bush.; val., $179. 
Oats, 55 acres; oats, per acre, 22 7-55 bush.: val., $791.05. 
Potatoes, 133 aci-es; potatoes, per acre, 87 bush.; val., $8,703. 
Beets, and other esculent vegetables, 8 acres; val., $690. 
English mowing, 953i acres; English hay, 844| tons; val., $16,995. 
Wet-meadow or swale hay, 858 tons; val., $8,580. 
Apple-trees, 7,980 ; val. of apples, $3,424.50. 
Pear-trees, 356; val. of pears, $53.75. 
Cranberries, 86 acres; val., $969.35. 
Beeswax, 3 lb ; val., $1. 
Establishments for m. of boot and shoe boxes, 1; cap., $3,000; val. of boxes m'd., 

$4,000; emp., 3. 
Val. of vanes m'd., $4,000; cap., $1,500; emp., 3. 
Onions, turnips, carrot, and beets raised, 1,380 bush.; val., $690. 



APPENDIX. 163 



BRIDGEWATEK. 

Rolling, slitting, and nail mills, 4; iron m'd., and not made into nails, 1,000 tons; 

val. of iron, §80,000; machines for m. of nails, 52; nails m'd., 62,500 casks; val. 

of nails, §250,000; cap., §77,000; emp., 207. 
Forges, 2 ; iron m'd., 70 tons ; val. of ii-on, &c., $10,500 ; cap., $6,000 ; emp., 20. 
Furnaces for m. of hollow ware and castings, 1 ; liollow ware and other castings 

m'd., 600 tons; val. of hollow ware, &c., $40,000; cap., $18,000; emp., 30. 
Paper manufactories, 2; stock made use of, 270 tons; paper m'd., 210 tons; val. of 

paper, $30,000; cap., $18,000; emp., 20. 
Establishments for m. of chaises, wagons, sleighs, and other vehicles, 2; val. of 

vehicles m'd., $5,800; cap., $2,000; emp., 7. 
Establishment for m. of soap, 2; soap m'd., 25,120 gals; val. of soap, $2,540; cap., 

$1,500; emp., 3. 
Tin-ware manufactories, 1; val. of tin ware, $500; cap., $500; emp., 2. 
Establishments for m. of cotton gins, 1; val. of cotton gins m'd., $14,000; cap., 

$30,000 ; emp., 40. 
Boots of all kinds m'd., 600 pairs; shoes of all kinds m'd., 166,000 pairs; val. of 

boots and shoes, $125,700 ; m. emp., 55 ; f. emp., 35. 
Bricks m'd., 3,000,000; val. of bricks, $12,000; emp., 30. 
Charcoal m'd., 63,600 bush; val. of same, $4,000; emp., 20. 
Lumber prepared for market, 900,000 ft.; val. of lumber, $7,600; emp., 30. 
Firewood prepared for mai-ket, 2,217 cords ; .val. of firewood, $6,651 ; emp., 30. 
Horses, 229; val. of horses, $16,472. Oxen, over three years old, 151; steers, under 

three years old, 18; value of oxen and steers, $7,557. Milch cows, 444; heifers, 

51 ; val. of cows and heifers, $14,228. 
Butter, 25,836 lbs; val. of butter, $6,459. Cheese, 6,670 lbs; val. of cheese, $834; 

Honey, 130 lbs; val. of honey, $26. 
Indian com, 283 acres ; Indian corn, per acre, 29 bush. ; val., $8,136. 
Wheat, 1^ acre; wheat, per acre, 16 bush.; val., $48. 
Rye, 57 acres; rye, per acre, 11 bush.; val., $857. 
Barley, 35 acres; barley, per acre, 24 bush.; val., $80. 
Oats, 129 acres; oats, per acre, 23 bush.; val., $1,898. 
Potatoes, 157 acres; potatoes, per acre, 86 bush.; val., $6,786. 
Onions, 1 acre; onions, per acre, 380 bush.; val., $190. 

Turnips, cultivated as a field crop, 4^ acres ; turnips, per acre, 325 bush. ; val., $460. 
Carrots, ^ acre; carrots, per acre, 416 bush.; val., $62. 
Beets, and other esculent vegetables, | acre; val., $42. 
English mowing, 1,540 acres; English haj-, 1,128 tons; val., $20,304. 
Wet-meadow or swale hay, 414 tons; val., $4,140. 
Apple-trees, 9,299; val. of apples, $3,902. 
Pear-trees, 1,180; val. of pears, $128. 
Cranberries, 14 acres: val., $520. 
Establishments for m. of shingle and box-board mills, 1; mills m'd., 12; val., $4,000 ; 

cap., $3,000; emp., 5. 

EAST BRIDGEWATEK. 

Rolling, slitting, and nail mills, 1; iron m'd., and not made into nails, 1,000 tons; 

val. of iron, $70,000; macliines for m. of nails, 29; nails m'd., 24,000 kegs; val. 

of nails, $96,000; cap., $50,000; emp., 75. 
Forges, 1; wrought iron m'd., 468 tons; val. of bar iron, &c., $32,760; cap., $2,000; 

amp., 5. 



164 APPENDIX. 



Furnaces for ni. of hollow ^\^lre and cixstiiii^s, 1 ; hollow ware, &c., m'd., 100 tons ; 

val. of hollow ware, &c., $7,000; cap., $8,000; emp., 8. 
Establishments for m. of machinery, 1; val., of machinery m'd., $10,000; cap., 

$8,000; emp., 10. 
Establishments for ni. of steam-engines, 1; val. of engines, $51,000; cap., $50,000; 

emp., 35. 
Tack and brad manufactories, 2; tacks and brads m'd., 450 tons; val. of tacks and 

bi-ads, $70,000; cap., $15,000; m. emp., 56; f. emp., 12; no. of tack machines, 7tj. 
Brass foundries, 1; val. of articles m'd., $600; cap., $500; emp., 2. 
Saddle, harness, and trunk manufactories, 2; val. of saddles, &c., $2,000; cap., 

$1,400; emp., 2. 
Establishments for m. of boats, 1; boats built, 6; cap., $300; emp., 1. 
Establishments for m. of chaises, wagons, sleighs, and other vehicles, 3; val. of 

vehicles m'd., $4,000; cap., $1,700; emp., 6. 
Establishments for m. of firearms, 1; val. of firearms, $1,000; cap., $800; emp., 1. 
Tin-ware manufactories, 2; val. of tin ware, $4,000; cap., $1,500; emp., 5. 
Establishments for m. of cotton gins, 2; val. of cotton gins m'd., $85,000; cap., 

$84,000; emp., 60. 
Boots of all kinds m'd., 3,120 pairs; shoes of all kinds m'd., 442,200 pairs; val. of 

boots and shoes, $399,200; m. emp., 235; f. emp., 134. 
Bricks m'd., 500,000; val. of bricks, $2,500; emp., 9. 
Val. of snufl', tobacco, and cigars, $4,400; m. emp., 5; f. emp., 2. 
Val. of mechanics' tools m'd., $3,000 ; emp., 2. 

Lumber pi'epared for market, 608,000 ft.; val. of lumber, $6,530; emp., 21. 
Shingles m'd., 379,000; val. of shingles, $947.50. 

Firewood prepared for market, 2,175 cords; val. of firewood, $6,990; emp., 7. 
Sheep, 11 ; val. of sheep, $33 ; wool produced, 36 lbs. 
Horses, 214; val. of horses, $19,250. Oxen, over three years old, 104; steers, under 

three years old, 33; val. of oxen and steers, $6,121. Milch cows, 359; heifers, 

63 ; val. of cows and heifers, $14,246. 
Butter, 22,752 lbs.; val. of butter, $6,825.60. Cheese, 4,310 lbs.; val. of cheese, 

$603.40. 
Indian corn, 209| acres; Indian corn, per acre, 30 bush.; val., $7,046.48. 
Wheat, 3i acres ; wheat, per acre, 20 bush. ; val. $130. 
Eye, 33i acres; rye, per acre, 20 biish.; val., $997.50. 
Barley, 6^ acres; barley, per acre, 25 bush.; val., $195.41. 
Oats, 29| acres; oats, per acre, 25 bush.; val., $371.87. 
Potatoes, 252 J acres; potatoes, per acre, 100 bush.; val., $25,250. 
Turnips, cultivated as a field-crop, 6^ acres; turnips, per acre, 300 bush; value, 



Carrots, 4 acres; carrots, per acre, 400 bush.; val., 

English mowing, l,314i acres; English hay, 728^ tons; val., $14,570. 

Wet-meadow or swale hay, 510 tons; val., $5,100. 

Apple-trees, 8,042 ; val. of apples, $1,657. 

Pear-trees, 1,021 ; val. of pears, $173. 

Ctanberries, 7 acres; val., $250. 

Establishments for m. of boxes for packing boots, shoes, tacks, and brads, 2 ; val. 

of boxes m'd., $15,450; cap., $9,100; emp., 9. 
Establishments for m. of cap tubes, 1; tubes m'd., 4,800,000; val. of tubes, $4,800; 

cap., $3,000; emp., 3. 
Nurseries, 2; val. sold, $2,000; cap., $4,100; emp., 3. 
Establishments for m. of patterns, 1; val. of patterns m'd., $2,000; emp., 1. 



APPENDIX. 165 



NORTH BRIDGEWATER. 

Musical-instrument manufactories, 2; val. of musical instruments m'd., $8,780; 

cap., $2,000; emp., 9. 
Daguerreotype artists, 1; daguerreotypes taken, 800; cap., $450; emp., 1. 
Brush manufactories, 2; val. of brushes, $8,000; cap., $3,000; emp., 11. 
Saddle, harness, and trunk manutactories, 1; val. of saddles, &c., $6,000; cap., 

$2,000; emp., 4. 
Establishments for m. of chaises, wagons, sleighs, and other vehicles, .3 ; val. of 

carriages m'd., $5,200; cap., $1,600; emp., 8. 
Establishments for m. of soap and tallow candles, 2; soap m'd., 280 bbls. ; val. of 

soap, $1,120. 
Chair and cabinet manufactories, 1; val. of chairs and cabinet ware, $20,000; cap., 

$10,000; emp., 32. 
Tin-ware manufactories, 2; val. of tin ware, $13,000; cap., $4,600; emp., 7. 
Boots of all kinds m'd., 66,956 pairs; shoes of all kinds m'd., 694,760 pairs; val., of 

boots and shoes, $724,847; m. emp., 692; f. emp., 484. 
Val. of building stone quarried and prepared for building, $500; emp., 4. 
Val. of blacking, $8,000; emp., 4. 
Val. of blocks and pumps m'd., $50; emp., 1. 
Val. of mechanics' tools m'd., $2,540; emp., 44. 
Lasts m'd., 40,000; val., $10,000. 

Lumber prepared for market, 213,000 ft. ; val. of lumber, $32,025. 
Fu-ewood prepared for market, 3,348 cords; val. of firewood, $13,796; emp., 60. 
Sheep, 5; val. of sheep, $10; wool produced, 20 lbs. 
Horses, 343; val. of horses, $29,880. Oxen, over three years old, 74; steers, under 

three years old, 26; val. of oxen and steers, $5,760. Milch cows, 420; heifers, 

36 ; val. of cows and heifers, $17,068. 
Butter, 20,075 lbs. ; val. of butter, $5,018.75. Cheese, 6,505 lbs. ; val. of cheese, 

$650.50. Honey, 620 lbs. ; val. of honey, $155. 
Indian corn, 216 acres; Indian corn, per acre, 28 bush.; val., $6,075. 
Rye, 25 acres; rye, per acre, 15 bush.; val., $567. 
Barley, 7 acres ; barley, per acre, 23 bush. ; val., $240. 
Oats, 20 acres; oats, per acre, 19 bush.; val., $225.60. 
Potatoes, 310 acres; potatoes, per acre, 90 bush.; val., $27,667. 
Turnips, 5 acres ; turnips, per acre, 200 bush. ; val., $250. 
Carrots, i acre ; carrots, per acre, 400 bush. ; val., $50. 
Beets, and other esculent vegetables, 20 acres ; val., $5,000. 
English mowing, 1,550 acres; English hay, 1,266 tons; val., $25,320. 
Wet-meadow or swale hay, 375 tons; val., $3,750. 
Apple-trees, 7,700; val. of apples, $3,000. 
Pear-trees, 818; val. of pears, $100. 
Cranberries, 16 acres ; val., $3,200. 
Beeswax, 100 lbs. ; val., $73. 
Bakeries, 1; fiour consumed, 200 bbls.; val. of bread m'd., $5,000; cap., $4,000; 

emp., 6. 
Establishments for m. of shoe boxes, 1: val. of boxes m'd., $1,500; cap., $1,000; 

emp., 1. 
Val. of boot-trees and forms m'd., $2,000. 
Peat, 500 cords ; val., $2,000. 
Swine raised, 526; val., $4,208. 



166 APPENDIX. 



HOUSES OF WOKSHIP AND TOWN-MEETINGS. 



The first house of worship, in ancient Bridgewater, was built of logs, about the 
year 1660. It is supposed to have stood near the site of the dwelling-house now 
occupied by Mr. Simeon Dunbar, in West Bridgewater. 

The second house was erected in 1674, in the square directly opposite where 
Major Jarvis D. Burrill now lives. The dimensions are noticed in Judge Wash- 
burn's Address. The Building Committee were Nicholas Byram, John Washburn, 
Samuel Allen, John Ames, Deacon John Willis, and Goodman (Samuel) Edson. 

The third meeting-house, near the centre of Bridgewater, — a view of which is 
placed at the beginning of this pamphlet, — was built, in 1731, on the site of the 
second. The Building Committee were Jonathan Hayward, jun., Israel Packard, 
Thomas Hayward, 3d, Ephraim Fobes, and Ephraim Hayward. The house was 
fifty feet long, thirty-eight wide, and twenty-two high, and entirely covered with 
shingles. Eleven places for pews were sold for one hundred and foi-ty-three pounds 
ten shillings; and, also, a pew was built, on the left side of the pulpit, for the use of 
the minister's family. The body of the house was furnished with long seats instead 
of pews. The edifice was three stories high, with two galleries, one above the other, 
on three sides. 

In 1767, the "balcony" was repaired, and a new spire erected upon it, and 
provision was made for hanging a bell which was purchased the same year. This 
was the second bell hung in the town, the North Parish having purchased one in 
1764. This building was used as a house of worship for seventy years, till the 
ei'ection of the fourth house on land bought of Gamaliel Howard, near the orchard 
of Jonathan Copeland. 

In 1802, the West Parish voted to give the town of Bridgewater the old meeting- 
house, the third, and the land on which it stood, for the purpose of holding town- 
meetings, so long as they should keep the house in repair. The belfry was then 
taken down, and town-meetings were accordingly held in that house till the division 
of the town in 1822. The building was taken down in 1823, having served the pur- 
pose of a town-house ninety years. 

The old " Double-Decker " was an object of interest to persons of all ages. It 
was the great focus of the several parishes; and the exciting debates during the 
war of 1812, and the amusing incidents connected with the house, are fresh in 
the minds of many of the older residents among us. Soon after the building began 
to be used solely as a town-hall, a magazine was built in the north-west corner of 
the upper gallery; and the ammunition of the town was brought from the " Old 
Powder House," and stored, to the great delight of the boys, who used to find here 
ample materials for the manufacture of " plummets," which were to grace their 
writing-books at the winter school. On the division of the town, the remaining 
warlike materials were distributed among the four towns. 

The Selectmen, for many years previous to the separation, were Mr. John Willis, 
of the West ; Mr. Silvanus Pratt, of the South ; Capt. Ezra Kingman, of the East ; 
and Capt. Abel Kingman, of the North. 



APPENDIX. 167 



Of the seven Town Clerks, from 1656 to 1822, a period of a hundred and sixty- 
six years, Capt. Eliakim Howard was the last, having served forty-three years. It 
was the practice, for a long series of years, after the citizens had assembled in 
town-meeting, for the Selectmen to deputize two of their number to go to the house 
of Rev. Dr. Reed, and escort him to the town-house, where the venerable man 
preceded the business of the day with prayer. 

The number assembled was sometimes so great, that it was found almost im- 
possible to declare a vote, on some important question, within the house ; and the 
company adjourned to the street, where, after a cai-eful array of lines along the road 
leading to the north, the yeas taking the east side, and the nays the west, the whole 
sometimes reaching Mr. Gamahel Howard's corner, a decision of the question was 
obtained. The highest number of votes ever cast in the house was nine hundred 
and six. 

Usually, after a town-meeting was over, the proceedings of the day closed with 
a wrestling match : the Parishes challenging each other, frequently the North and 
East being arrayed against the West and South. 



THE END. 



) ^-" .f.^*--^^ 



^^ 



CELEBRATION 



®li) a-fuiitrreWI giiiiuli coarg 



INCORPORATION OF BMDGEWATER, 



MASSACHUSETTS, 



At West Bridgewater, June 3, 1856; 



INCLUDING TSE 



ADDRESS BY HON. EMORY WASHBURN, OF WORCESTER; 



POEM BY JAMES REED, A.B., OF BOSTON; 



AND THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE OCCASION. 



SlSttf) an appentifi:. 



rCBLtSBED BV BEQCBST OP THE COMMITTEE OF AHRANGBMBNTS. 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 

22, School Stkeet. 
1856. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



In: III I II I III! I 
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